The United States has often struggled to turn rag-tag foreign forces into professional armies, but President Barack Obama is gambling that this time the training effort will succeed in Iraq and Syria.
Eager to avoid sending US combat troops to fight against Islamic State jihadists, Obama is touting a renewed effort to bolster Iraqi government forces and "moderate" opposition fighters in Syria with weapons and advice from seasoned American officers.
But there are doubts in Western capitals that Washington can ensure a rebuilt Iraqi army will not fall prey once again to a Shiite sectarian agenda, or overcome in-fighting and extremism among rival Syrian rebel groups.
Until now, Obama has kept the Syrian civil war -- and its confusing array of rebel factions -- at arm's length, approving only limited support for some "moderate" opposition forces.
That effort, in which a couple of thousand rebels have been reportedly trained by the CIA in Jordan, has been blasted as timid and grossly inadequate by hawks in Washington and Arab allies.
The US president vowed this week to ratchet up support for the rebels, but it remains unclear how much help Washington is ready to provide and whether the West can even identify reliable partners who could form a viable fighting force -- at a time when Islamist hardliners are ascendant.
There are hundreds of rebel groups in Syria, riven by ideological and power rivalries, manned by fighters lacking basic military skills and often dominated by Islamist radicals.
Obama has asked Congress for usd 500 million to train as many as 5,000 rebel fighters over the next year, using US special forces instead of CIA officers. The plan got a boost this week with Saudi Arabia offering to host the training.
But US lawmakers have been less than enthusiastic, complaining Obama has failed to explain exactly what the plan will involve.
Senators also insist the US government must find secular-minded rebels to back, though experts who monitor the Syrian conflict say the debate in the United States is "naive."
The issue "is not being discussed at a realistic level," said Aron Lund, editor of Syria in Crisis, a report published by the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
