Analysis: Coalition content to let Assad make territorial gains

BEIRUT — As the U.S.-led coalition tightens the noose around the Islamic State group in Syria, President Bashar Assad’s Iranian-backed troops are also seizing back territory from the militants with little protest from Washington, a sign of how American options are limited without a powerful ally on the ground.

[...] it will be difficult to uproot militants and keep them out with only the Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the U.S. — and a coalition spokesman pointed out that Assad’s gains ease the burden on those forces.

Army Col. Ryan Dillon, the spokesman for the anti-Islamic State coalition, said Syrian government forces are welcome to reclaim territory held by the militants and fill the vacuum once the group is gone.

The statement was startling — even more so because soon after President Trump last week warned Assad he would pay “a heavy price,” claiming “potential” evidence that Syria was preparing for another chemical weapons attack.

The symbolism was striking this week as a smiling Assad paid a visit to central Hama, driving his own car, and to a Russian air base in western Syria, where he posed alongside Russian generals and inside the cockpit of a Russian SU-35 fighter jet.