Critics Say U.S. Is ‘Sleepwalking’ Into Wider Role in Syria

 A fighter jet landing on the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush in the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday. This month alone, the United States has shot down a Syrian warplane, come close to shooting another and downed two Iranian-made drones that were nearing American-backed troops on the ground.

WASHINGTON — To hear the Pentagon tell it, the United States still has no intention of getting involved in Syria’s six-year civil war; the American presence there is solely to help its allies defeat the Islamic State.

But a recent spate of incidents have raised alarm from diplomats and national security officials that the United States may be inadvertently sliding into a far bigger role in the Syrian civil war than it intended.

“We don’t seek conflict with anyone other than ISIS,” Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said on

Wednesday, using an acronym for the militant Sunni extremist group that is rooted in Syria and Iraq.

This month alone, the United States has shot down a Syrian warplane, come close to shooting another and downed two Iranian-made drones that were nearing American-backed troops on the ground.

Russia has retaliated by threatening to treat American planes as targets; in a dramatic “Top Gun”-style maneuver on Monday, one of Moscow’s jets buzzed within five feet of an American spy plane.

None of these encounters involved the Islamic State. The contradiction opens a larger question, national security experts say, of what kind of broader strategy the Trump administration plans once the Islamic State — now on the defensive — is defeated in Syria.

With each episode, “we own more of the conflict in Syria without articulating a strategy,” said Vali Nasr, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “We are sleepwalking into a much broader military mandate, without saying what we plan to do afterward.”

American military gains in Syria have far outpaced any diplomacy toward a political settlement of the Syrian civil war.

When President Barack Obama first began airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria three years ago, the instructions to the Pentagon seemed clear: Defeat the Islamic State through alliances with Syrians who oppose the brutal extremist group, but do not help them fight President Bashar al-Assad.

The Islamic State is now reeling in Syria. It has been battered by strikes from a host of enemies, from the United States and its regional allies to the Syrian government that is backed by Russia and Iran. It no longer holds one-third of the country, according to American officials who say that the group has lost around half of the territory it once controlled.

In past years, the Pentagon and its allies could stay out of the Syrian government’s way — and that of Mr. Assad’s backers in Russia and Iran — as all fought the Islamic State. Now, all sides are converging on a smaller piece of territory, resulting in competing forces increasingly turning on one another, in addition to the common enemy.

Captain Davis, at the Pentagon, noted that when American-backed ground troops are confronted by “armed drones, that leaves us with no choice but to defend ourselves and our partners.”

He said that the downing of an Iranian-made drone this week was done in self-defense. Defense officials insist that does not amount to a greater United States involvement in the broader war.

But privately, American military officials acknowledge that they are quickly running out of space in Syria to stay out of Mr. Assad’s way — not to mention Russia’s and Iran’s.

In Europe, the new president of France, Emmanuel Macron, announced that he would be taking a distinctly different tack on Syria than his predecessor. Mr. Macron said that getting rid of Mr. Assad was no longer a top priority.

Instead, Mr. Macron said, getting rid of terrorists is more important — and he is prepared to work with anyone toward that end, including Moscow.

“The real change I’ve made on this question is that I haven’t said the deposing of Bashar al-Assad is a prerequisite for everything,” Mr. Macron said in an interview with European newspapers, according to Agence France-Presse.

“My line is clear: One, a total fight against terrorist groups. They are our enemies… We need the cooperation of everyone to eradicate them, particularly Russia,” Mr. Macron said. “Two, stability in Syria, because I don’t want a failed state.”

He also said he was looking for a “political and diplomatic road map” but did not mention the United States or the United Nations.

That suggested that he would like to see the leading European Union countries play a larger role — not on the ground, but in diplomacy and the effort to disentangle the warring parties.

But at the moment there are no continuing talks among the major parties over what to do once the Islamic State is defeated in Syria.

And with the fight now intensifying in eastern Syria’s Euphrates River Valley — home to oil reserves and water — defense officials say that they are bracing for Mr. Assad and his backers to go all-out to reclaim that territory from the Islamic State.

Iran, in particular, does not want American-backed forces to take that ground for concern it would complicate Tehran’s supply line to Shiite allies in neighboring Iraq and Lebanon.

“The Obama administration’s policy, which was to focus solely on ISIS, kept the harder question about what to do about Russia and Iran and Assad off the table for a long time,” said Eric Robinson, a research programmer and analyst with the RAND Corporation. “That was doable in the beginning.”

But he added that “as ISIS is pushed out of northern Syria and Raqqa, and things are pushed into the middle Euphrates River Valley, we will see everyone focusing their attention on the same area.”

That, he said, will increase the chances of more episodes like the ones of the past month.

In turn, that could spur a larger conflict, particularly given that Russia has never been shy about escalation, and Mr. Trump is widely viewed as quicker to act than his predecessor.

“One of the last things Obama wanted was to get into a shooting war with Russia over Syria,” said Derek Chollet, Mr. Obama’s assistant secretary of defense for international affairs. “The risk of escalation with Russia was a constant factor in the administration’s planning and management of the military campaign.”

A big challenge, he said, is that Moscow likes “escalation dominance.” He characterized that as Russia’s willingness to risk more, even to its own detriment, to save Mr. Assad than the United States is willing to risk to take him out.