by Tyler Cullis
Few places deserve less optimism than Syria, where a civil war has raged unabated for more than two years. The situation on the ground continues to deteriorate at an appreciable rate, with close to 10 million people presently in need of food relief and medical assistance and 6.5 [...]]]>
by Tyler Cullis
Few places deserve less optimism than Syria, where a civil war has raged unabated for more than two years. The situation on the ground continues to deteriorate at an appreciable rate, with close to 10 million people presently in need of food relief and medical assistance and 6.5 million displaced from their homes. Even by conservative estimates, 126,000 people have fallen victim to the conflict since it began in March 2011. There is little to recommend the hopeful in Syria’s unending tragedy.
And yet for a conflict that has fallen into a kind of stasis, with neither the Syrian regime nor its opposition able to claim victory, there just might be a way forward if recent events are any suggestion. Last week, a date was finally set for the long-awaited Geneva II conference, although attendance — especially from the Syrian opposition — remains thus far unclear. The day prior, an interim deal was struck between the United States and its international partners and Iran concerning Iran’s nuclear program. The two followed so closely on the heels of one another that speculation was ripe — though empty — that the U.S.-Iran dialogue had reached as far as the Syrian conflict. Regardless, the interim deal augured well for the possibility that the U.S. extend an invitation to Iran for Geneva II and the pair compromise to realize mutual interests in ending the Syrian conflict.
This would, no doubt, require a change in the U.S.’s strategic calculus, which has thus far enacted a strict bar to Iran’s participation in the Geneva talks. But, as has long been recognized, without the Iranians at the table and without their interests adequately represented in Geneva, Iran can play spoiler to any kind of political resolution tabled there. The view in Damascus is that the Syrian regime is gaining momentum on the battlefield and can outlast the opposition, even if that means a decade or more of civil war. Without Iran’s commitment to a political transition, then, there is little end in sight.
Such a commitment is not a far-fetched idea any longer, either: Iran has good reasons to bring to a close the civil war in Syria, even if that means the removal of Bashar al-Assad. For one thing, the conflict has proved a significant drain on Iran’s own resources, as the Islamic Republic’s support for the Assad regime has required considerable expenditures in both money and manpower. While there is no clear sense as to the contribution Iran has made in terms of bodies on the ground, Iran has bankrolled a Syrian government that would have all but collapsed were it not for Iran’s financial benevolence. Further, the ongoing civil war has forced Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy, down from the mantle it once occupied in the Arab world following its July 2006 war with Israel. It is increasingly difficult to remember that, not long ago, Nasrallah, Assad, and Ahmadinejad were deemed the three most-admired world leaders in Arab public opinion. Clearly, the costs to Iran from a drawn-out conflict have been paid in blood, treasure, and reputation. Iran’s desire to staunch the bleeding should thus be obvious.
That is not to say that Iran is willing to sacrifice its interests in Syria, which are apparently deep enough to have warranted such costs in the first place. Whatever agreement is struck between the Syrian regime and its opposition will have to ensure that Iran maintains a healthy degree of influence in Damascus, or else Iran will undoubtedly favor the status quo, despite the overhead. But influence can come in many shades and certainly can be felt long after the passing of the Assad family’s reign.
In fact, by entertaining a political transition in Syria, Iran could well realize a broader set of interests. This includes the long-sought recognition that Iran is a regional power, armed with enough political influence to act as a broker between warring parties elsewhere. Should the U.S. overcome its stubborn refusal to permit Iran’s participation at Geneva II, the White House will have delivered to Iran what it has always sought: U.S. recognition that Iran cannot so easily be ignored. In doing so, however, the U.S. will turn the onus back on Iran, forcing it to live up to its promise and to deliver the political transition any deal to end the conflict requires. If Iran fails to do so, then it will have secured a narrow, perhaps fleeting victory in Syria, but lost the much larger battle for regional standing. Obviously, the pressure to deliver would be squarely on Iran’s shoulders.
Furthermore, at a time when the U.S. and Iran are speaking to each other, and the possibility exists for Iran’s reintegration into the world community after 34 years, Iran is incentivized to undertake such action as would reciprocate an American invitation to Geneva. Better than most, Iran appreciates the need to resolve the conflict in Syria. If doing so would likewise put Iran in the good graces of the U.S., then all the better, especially at such a sensitive point in the nuclear negotiations.
This all, of course, requires flexibility from the United States. As the International Crisis Group noted in a September statement, the U.S. needs to be “flexible with regards to timing and specific modalities [regarding Assad’s departure].” If Iran is willing to push Assad out, then the least the U.S. can do is accommodate the Iranians regarding the means by which the transition takes place. One possibility, entirely speculative, is that Assad depart office upon the end of his term, which, according to reforms he enacted early in the conflict, takes place next year. That would provide both the time for Geneva II participants to work out how exactly the transition will work, as well as a face-saving measure for Assad so that he can, however shamelessly, claim to be sacrificing himself to save a nation.
Is any of this, in fact, possible? That is entirely unclear. But until the U.S. includes Iran in the Geneva II process, one thing is absolutely certain: the Syrian civil war will continue on its interminable path.
– Tyler Cullis is a law graduate specializing in international law and U.S. foreign policy. Follow him onTwitter.
]]>Chuck Hagel hasn’t even been nominated for Secretary of Defense and yet rumors abound that he is a frontrunner for the job. The volume of the squawking from hard-line hawks opposing his nomination reveals much about the way the neoconservative echo chamber operates.
Morris Amitay, a former executive director of [...]]]>
Chuck Hagel hasn’t even been nominated for Secretary of Defense and yet rumors abound that he is a frontrunner for the job. The volume of the squawking from hard-line hawks opposing his nomination reveals much about the way the neoconservative echo chamber operates.
Morris Amitay, a former executive director of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), founder of Washington PAC, and author of the 2008 ultimatum, Why Jews Must Vote for John McCain“, opined to Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon that Hagel becoming Secretary of Defense “would be a very unwise and disastrous choice for U.S. policies and activities regarding the Middle East.” Asked to rate Hagel’s views on Israel, Amitay responded, “He’s probably the worst.”
“He is one of the most hostile critics of Israel that has ever been in the Senate,” harrumphed Morton Klein, President of the Zionist Organization of America to The Algemeiner, a right-wing (and virulently anti-Obama) Jewish news site.
Noah Silverman of the Republican Jewish Coalition wrote that Hagel’s nomination would be a “gut check” for pro-Obama Israel supporters, gleefully pointing to a litany of complaints about Hagel refusing to sign letters of support on a variety of Israel-related topics compiled by the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC). Silverman also referenced the rantings of Jennifer Rubin, Right Turn blogger at the Washington Post, who dusted off and recycled some anti-Hagel canards from her files, in particular an anti-Hagel screed she wrote for Commentary in 2010.
What do Rubin and the hyper-pro-Israel, franti-Iran-spinmeisters find so distressing and dangerous about Hagel? And how justified are their accusations? Rubin notes that “In 2009, Hagel signed a letter urging Obama to open direct negotiations with Hamas, a position so extreme that Obama hasn’t (yet) embraced it.”
In fact, the said letter was the brainchild of Henry Siegman, the Executive Director of the American Jewish Congress for nearly three decades, an ordained Orthodox rabbi, a US army chaplain awarded a bronze star during the Korean War and currently President of the US/Middle East Project (USMEP). He also authored a 2006 article for the New York Review of Books stating that negotiating with Hamas was Israel’s last chance for peace. Hagel’s nine “extreme” bi-partisan co-signatories were two veteran presidential national security advisers, Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski; economic adviser Paul Volcker; JFK’s special counsel Ted Sorensen; former House International Relations Committee chairman Lee Hamilton, a Democrat; former Bush #41 UN ambassador Thomas Pickering, co-chair of USMEP; World Bank president James Wolfensohn; Carla Hills, a former US trade representative during the Ford administration; and another former Republican senator, Nancy Kassebaum Baker.
Hagel’s anti-Israel stance is epitomized by a (rather fuzzily cited) Hagel quote dug up by Rubin, which she apparently considers damning: “Let me clear something up here if there’s any doubt in your mind. I’m a United States Senator. I’m not an Israeli senator. I’m a United States Senator. I support Israel. But my first interest is, I take an oath of office to the constitution of the United States. Not to a president, not to a party, not to Israel.”
On Iran, Rubin wrote in 2010: “Hagel was one of two senators in 2004 to vote against renewal of the Libya-Iran sanctions act. (“Messrs. Hagel and [Richard] Lugar … want a weaker stance than most other senators against the terrorists in Iran and Syria and the West Bank and Gaza and against those who help the terrorists. They are more concerned than most other senators about upsetting our erstwhile allies in Europe — the French and Germans — who do business with the terrorists.”)
The unidentified parenthetical quote she used in both her Washington Post and Commentary attacks on Hagel was lifted from a 2004 New York Sun editorial disparaging Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry for his adherence to “Lugar-Hagelism”– a foreign policy stance that regards direct negotiations with antagonists as being far more productive and efficacious than sanctions:
…what is Lugar-Hagelism?
One indicator came on July 24, 2001, when the Senate voted 96 to 2 to renew the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. The act helps deny Iran and Libya money that they would spend on supporting terror or acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The two senators who opposed the measure? Messrs. Lugar and Hagel.
Another indicator came on November 11, 2003, when the Senate, by a vote of 89 to 4, passed the Syria Accountability Act authorizing sanctions on Syria for its support of terrorism and its occupation of Lebanon. Mr. Hagel – along with Mr. Kerry – didn’t vote. Mr. Hagel met in Damascus in 1998 with the terror-sponsoring dictator, Hafez Al-Assad, and returned to tell a reporter about the meeting, “Peace comes through dealing with people. Peace doesn’t come at the end of a bayonet or the end of a gun.”
Kerry and Hagel weren’t alone in abstaining on the Syria Accountability Act vote. Sen. Joe Lieberman didn’t cast a vote either. More to the point, Hagel’s stance on Syria, expressed to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2005, has proven itself astute, even prescient:
The United States should be very cautious about supporting the collapse of the Assad regime. That would be a dangerous event, with the potential to trigger wider regional instability at a time when our capacity to help shape a desired regional outcome is very limited. Our objective should be a strategic shift in Syria’s perspective and actions that would open the way to greater common interests for the countries of the region.
Furthermore, it would appear that attacks from the right on Hagel might also apply to Kerry: “Mr. Kerry has a lot in common with Mr. Hagel; Mr.Hagel is also a decorated Vietnam veteran who is now a multimillionaire. Mr. Kerry has a lot in common with Mr. Lugar, too; they are both former Navy officers. Mr. Lugar has been in the Senate for 27 years, while Mr. Kerry has been there, and serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Mr. Lugar now chairs, for 19 years.”
Ironically, during the 2012 election cycle, Lugar — who the New York Sun dubbed “Ayatollah Lugar” for his skepticism about the wisdom of Iran sanctions — received $20,000 from NORPAC, a leading pro-Israel political action committee in New Jersey, more than any other candidate in the 2012 election cycle. The Jewish Week explains why pro-Israel groups lamented Lugar’s defeat in the Indiana GOP primary and his absence from the Senate:
Lugar, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, consistently backed defense assistance for Israel and in the 1980s championed freedom for Soviet Jews. But he was also known for pushing a more active U.S. approach to brokering Middle East peace than that favored by much of the pro-Israel lobby, and he preferred to move ahead cautiously on Iran sanctions….
Israel advocates and GOP insiders explained that Lugar represented a breed of lawmaker who pro-Israel groups see as valuable to their cause and disappearing: One who reaches across the aisle.
“Lugar wasn’t actively pro-Israel, but he wasn’t anti either,” said Mike Kraft, a staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 1970s and 1980s who now is a consultant on counterterrorism and writes for a number of pro-Israel websites and think tanks. “But generally losing a good, balanced, thoughtful guy on foreign policy is a real tragedy. It weakens the American political system.”
Try telling that to Jennifer Rubin.
- Dr. Marsha B. Cohen is an independent scholar, news analyst, writer and lecturer in Miami, FL specializing in Israeli-Iranian relations. An Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Florida International University for over a decade, she now writes and lectures in a variety of venues on the role of religion in politics and world affairs.
]]>I wrote a couple of days ago about the reactive nature of Iran’s Syria ‘strategy’ but what I really meant was Iran’s Syria ‘policy.’ The distinction is important because by providing full-fledged public support to Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Iran’s leaders have made a critical policy move. They could have [...]]]>
I wrote a couple of days ago about the reactive nature of Iran’s Syria ‘strategy’ but what I really meant was Iran’s Syria ‘policy.’ The distinction is important because by providing full-fledged public support to Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Iran’s leaders have made a critical policy move. They could have made a different choice. There are significant elements within Iran’s foreign policy and even defense establishments which view the Syrian regime as a significant ally of the Islamic Republic, but do not see its collapse as an existential threat. More importantly, while they value the strategic relationship with Syria as a highly valued instrument for resisting Western penetration of the region, they do not see it as a vital interest. While acknowledging Iran’s security interests in their immediate neighborhood, including in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, they do not consider Iran’s extensive involvement in issues related to Palestine, Lebanon, or Syria as so critical to the country’s long-term strategic interests.
This explains the existence of alternative voices in the country that have called for a more balanced and proactive approach to Syria that did not place all of Iran’s eggs in Assad’s basket from the beginning of the unrest. And, Tehran did indeed take the initial steps toward providing full-fledged support for the Assad regime rather hesitantly in major part because it risked undermining Iran’s stated position in support of protest movements in the region. But, as regional players Turkey and Saudi Arabia began supporting the opposition, and as rhetoric in the United States and Israel focused increasingly on how the fall of the Syrian regime would constitute a “strategic” blow against Iran, Tehran ultimately adopted a policy of full support for the regime. This move arose from the argument – and, in some cases, genuine conviction – that, while the unrest was initially part of a spontaneous, domestic movement, at some point it turned into a larger geopolitical struggle in which regional and international players intent on weakening and eventually undermining the Islamic Republic were playing an increasingly critical role. Of course, one can point to paranoia as the source of this policy, but it’s a paranoia that’s at least partially situated in reality and that’s certainly fed by pundits and politicians in the US and Israel.
Regardless of the reasoning behind the decision-makers’ rationale, given what has transpired in Syria, Iran’s chosen policy appears to have been the wrong one.
Instead of hedging by trying to establish links with a multiplicity of political forces as Iran did effectively in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the policy of fully supporting Assad’s regime has not only come to naught, it is also hurting Iran’s attempts to develop relationships with newly elected Islamist governments in the region, particularly in Egypt, a country with which the Islamic Republic hoped to improve relations rapidly following the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood. More importantly, this one-track Syria policy has diminished Tehran’s leverage when it comes to gaining a seat at the table where regional issues are deliberated upon. If Iran’s only leverage in Syria is through Assad and company, what can Iran contribute that is beyond what Russia is already doing (or not doing)?
The question of whether the Islamic Republic could have actually pursued a more balanced approach is by the way not an easy one to answer. Given the under-studied dynamics and mechanics of relations between Tehran and Damascus, it is not at all clear if Iran had the capability to hedge in Syria. The nature of the Assad regime in all likelihood prevented Tehran from establishing any linkages with the opposition in the same way, for instance, that the Shah’s regime limited the Carter Administration’s potential linkages with the opposition in the late 1970s.
Still, the question of whether a more nuanced game could have been played remains. There are also serious questions concerning the quality of Iranian intelligence about on the ground conditions in Syria. Quoting a Syrian MP, Fars News, the penultimate tribune for hard-line bravura in the country, is still assuring its readers that “terrorists have so far not been able to take charge of any region. Damascus is under control, and Assad is in charge.” I have no idea if this is really the assessment of the hardliners who now control the country’s multiple intelligence-gathering bodies. But neither the boast nor the assessment suggests a very competent handling of the Syria situation.
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