by Thomas Lippman

For the United States, Saudi Arabia, other supporters of the rebels in Syria, and for the rebels themselves, this has been a month of fast-paced, intense diplomatic and political activity. It is tempting after so much time and so many deaths to dismiss all the events [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Thomas Lippman

For the United States, Saudi Arabia, other supporters of the rebels in Syria, and for the rebels themselves, this has been a month of fast-paced, intense diplomatic and political activity. It is tempting after so much time and so many deaths to dismiss all the events since mid-January as the inconclusive comings and goings of people who simply don’t know what to do about the intractable conflict, but it’s also possible to add it all up and see the possibility of an emerging new energy, cohesion, and perhaps more effective action.

At the very least, the events and consultations since mid-January seem to have put the United States and Saudi Arabia back on the same page.

A useful point to begin this review is the visit to Washington in mid-January of Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia’s minister of interior and the most powerful man in the country other than the king. Nayef, who is respected in Washington for his leadership of Saudi Arabia’s struggle against an al-Qaeda uprising a decade ago, saw everyone in the U.S. national security establishment, plus key members of Congress. Not much was said publicly about the outcome, but within a couple of weeks events began to unfold rapidly.

On Feb. 3, a few days before Prince Muhammad left for Washington, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia issued a royal decree making it a crime, punishable by prison time, for any Saudi citizen to fight in a foreign conflict. This reflected Riyadh’s concern about the hundreds of young Saudis who have joined extremist rebel groups in Syria and could some day return to make trouble at home. It also was aimed at deflecting criticism from Washington, where some officials have said Riyadh was not doing enough to cut off the flow of fighters.

That same day, Feb. 3, the White House confirmed reports that Obama will visit Saudi Arabia in late March. This has been a difficult year for U.S.-Saudi relations due to disagreements over Iran’s nuclear program and policy toward Egypt, as well as over Syria. Obama’s planned visit is clearly intended to smooth over some of these differences; the conversations would have been more difficult still if the issue of Saudis going to Syria to fight with the jihadi extremists were still on the table.

On Feb. 12, according to the Saudi embassy, Prince Muhammad met with Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and with Under Secretary Wendy Sherman. She holds the administration’s Iran nuclear portfolio and has strongly defended its interim agreement with Tehran, a deal that caused heartburn in Riyadh. While in Washington, Muhammad also met with CIA officials and with the intelligence chiefs of Turkey, Qatar, Jordan and other supporters of the rebels, according to press reports.

Then the pace of events accelerated.

On Feb. 12, King Abdullah II of Jordan, whose country is straining under the burden of supporting Syrian refugees, met with Vice President Joe Biden to discuss “ongoing efforts to bring about a political transition and an end to the conflict in Syria,” the White House said. Two days later, Abdullah conferred with Obama.

On Feb. 15, the UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva ended, predictably, in failure. Secretary of State John Kerry put the blame squarely on the Assad regime’s intransigence, but regardless of who was responsible, that avenue now appears to have come to a dead end.

The next day, the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army — that is, the non-extremist rebels whom Washington and presumably Riyadh support — announced that Gen. Salam Idriss, the overall military commander who had been increasingly criticized as ineffective, was being replaced. His successor, backed by the Saudis, is Brig. Gen. Abdul-Illah Bashir al-Noeimi. It is too early to know whether he will be able to enlist the support of all the often-divided rebel factions, who are battling extremist forces aligned with al-Qaeda as well as the Syrian army.

Back in Washington, the White House announced on Feb. 18 that Robert Malley, a veteran Middle East hand from the Clinton administration, would return to the National Security Council. His assignment is to manage relations with the often-fractious allies of the Arab Gulf states, a group that includes Saudi Arabia.

A day later, Feb. 19, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Prince Muhammad bin Nayef had taken over as boss of the kingdom’s effort to arm and strengthen the Free Syrian Army and other non-extremist groups. The Post’s Karen de Young reported the next day that the intelligence chiefs, at their Washington gathering a week earlier, had agreed on how to define which rebel groups were eligible for new aid, and on new arms shipments to them. Muhammad, a firm if low-key operative, replaced the mercurial Prince Bandar bin Sultan, whose personal charisma had evidently not impressed the rebels.

That same day, Feb. 19, Deputy Secretary Burns delivered a speech that was widely depicted as a preview of what Obama will say to King Abdullah next month: the United States is committed to its strategic partnership with the Arab Gulf states, and will not be bamboozled into a permanent agreement with Iran that would leave Tehran with any path to nuclear weapons. Telling the Saudis what they want to hear, Burns said that in Syria, “the simple truth is that there can be no stability and no resolution to the crisis without a transition to a new leadership.” That is, Bashar al-Assad must go, as the Saudis and Obama himself have long demanded, and Riyadh should not interpret the agreement by which Syria is due to give up its chemical weapons as U.S. acquiescence in Assad’s legitimacy.

Meanwhile, of course, Syrians are dying by the thousands as the government continues to bomb civilian areas, and there is no end in sight. Even if Assad steps down, Burns said, the United States has “no illusions” about “the very difficult day after — or, more likely, the very difficult years after.” 

Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah are still supporting Assad. It is possible that he could survive to preside over some rump state. But it does appear that the working program of those who want to get rid of him is, at least, less messy and disorganized than it was a month ago.

*This post was revised on Feb. 25 to make an adjustment to the sequence of events.

Photo: Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud (left) with Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdul Azi

by Robert E. Hunter

With the collapse of the latest round of negotiations over Syria’s future, the tragedy of its people — of all ethnic and religious backgrounds — continues into its third year. Military forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are doing better than was expected a few months ago.  The [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Robert E. Hunter

With the collapse of the latest round of negotiations over Syria’s future, the tragedy of its people — of all ethnic and religious backgrounds — continues into its third year. Military forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are doing better than was expected a few months ago.  The opposition, a heterogeneous group directing their disparate energies to the common goal of ending Assad’s rule, is increasingly dominated by Islamist extremists. Meanwhile no outside country has been prepared to act to bring the conflict to a halt and take responsibility for what comes next.

The phrase “outside country” is assumed to mean the United States, ignoring the fact that Europe is far closer and, as hundreds of thousands of refugees flee Syria, many will find their way to that continent rather than America. But the European Union is in dis-union over economics, uncertain of its foreign policy future — though it has now succeeded in Ukraine where the US failed — and still expects Washington to look after shared Western interests in the Middle East.

For the US to take the lead and pursue effective diplomacy, it must decide what final outcome to Syrian fighting will best suit American interests and values — begging the question of whether the US or anyone else can determine results. Washington has still not made this decision. If and when it does, it must also convince its friends and allies in the region to follow suit and, in the case of some of them, to stop poisoning the well. As of now, that course is unlikely, as each regional country pursues its own interests, heedless of the best interests of the Syrian people as a whole.

Much of what has been happening in Syria stems from the political, cultural, economic, and — to a degree — religious earthquake that began in Tunisia in December 2010, and spread to Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain, sweeping up Syria in the process. But what is happening in Syria has proved to be more complicated and perhaps more consequential than what has been happening in the other “Arab Spring” countries.  Unlike Libya, Syria is not remote from the rest of the region; unlike Bahrain, its struggles are already spilling over onto other countries; and Syria’s turmoil is impacting other US foreign policy concerns, including negotiations with Iran and those between Israel and the Palestinians.

To begin with, the Syrian civil war has become part of the age-old struggle between the descendants of the Prophet — Sunni vs. Shia. The latest round began when the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq toppled a Sunni minority government that had for centuries dominated its Shia majority. For Sunni states, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and to a degree Turkey, Syria is payback time. That means doing all they can, both directly and with whatever support they can muster from the US and Europe, to depose Assad and, with his departure, the political dominance of the minority Alawites (a Shia sect).

Syria has also become a surrogate struggle for preeminence in the region, pitting Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arabs against Iran and perhaps also Turkey. To top it off, rich Sunnis in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE have been providing inspiration, cash, and thus access to arms to al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations to operate in Syria, just as they have been operating in Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, in the last-named country killing Americans and other troops in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The Saudi government has not been directly involved, but it has not stopped the heinous practice, while the US has turned a blind eye.

Further, at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Israel, the US has blocked Iran’s participation in the Geneva talks on Syria, a sine qua non for success that might give Iran some incentive to reduce its own destructive role in Syria as well as Lebanon, a role motivated in part to show that Iran cannot be excluded from planning over the region’s future.

Unfortunately, by proclaiming two years ago that “Assad must go,” President Barack Obama fell into a trap and made himself and the United States handmaidens to Sunni and Saudi-led political objectives.  The premise of diplomacy has thus been “transition” beyond the Assad regime, rather than just searching for an end to the conflict, even if Assad were left in place. But given that he is not likely to negotiate his own demise (figuratively and perhaps also literally); and given that the Alawites have little confidence about their own survival in the chaos that would likely follow Assad’s departure, it is no wonder that diplomacy has led nowhere.

Further, Obama and his team have not been willing to say “we got it wrong” in calling for Assad to step down, rather than viewing that as a possible, if desirable, result down the road. Few leaders have the courage to admit being wrong, and the President would be hammered in the media and on Capitol Hill if he did. Nor has the United States done more than make vague declarations of hope to show the Alawites that they would not risk life and limb if Assad did go — perhaps as the result of a coup d’état by disaffected Alawite military leaders. So, “negotiating the transition” remains the (untenable) premise of diplomacy.

No one has yet done the hard work of fashioning a process whereby all the different sects in Syria would have a reasonable chance of security, equality and fair political representation. “Holding free elections” is a nice slogan; it is not a policy or on its own a serious process for getting from here to there.  And if anyone doubts the difficulty, he or she should take a look next door at Lebanon — to an extent Syria in microcosm — which for decades has tried and failed to find a workable recipe for governance.

This throws outsiders back on second best, which is to try providing humanitarian relief in Syria, as well as relief to the millions of refugees who have fled Syria. It means the US, Europeans, and Russia need finally to devise a diplomacy that has a chance to work for all Syrians, including the Alawites, whatever the outcome for Assad. It also ratchets up the need for the US and other Western states to lean heavily on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arabs to stop using Syria for their own sectarian and geopolitical ends. This includes bringing Iran into the Syria negotiations and then impressing on Tehran that its future in the outside world requires it to limit its regional ambitions.

The Saudi government recently announced that any Saudi citizen fighting in Syria will go to jail when he gets back home. But this is a “day late and a riyal short” and is no doubt linked to Obama’s scheduled visit to Riyadh next month, ostensibly to reassure the Saudis and other friendly regional states that the US will not compromise their interests in diplomacy regarding Syria or with Iran. Between now and then, however, the Saudis should be required to demonstrate their bona fides. The US president must not go to a country that is just throwing gasoline on the fire.

The point should be made in even broader terms: why is the United States rushing to reassure regional countries that it will not sell out their interests either in Syria or with Iran? For decades, the US has moved heaven and earth in an attempt to make the Middle East safe for all our friends and allies, with little or no thanks for doing so and often uncooperative behavior. But with the radical reduction of US dependence on the region’s oil, the balance of advantage has swung radically: friendly local states across the Middle East now depend a lot more on the US than we do on them.

President Obama should use his trip to Saudi Arabia to make that point clearly, while US diplomats fan out to underscore that our patience has run out with rivalries among countries ostensibly on our side, that we will not tolerate efforts to sabotage the talks with Iran, and that if we are expected to help stop the Syrian conflict, we will do so to advance the cause of humanity in Syria and US interests in a region with a chance for peace — not to be a cat’s paw to others’ ambitions.

The US also needs to finally start seeing everything that happens in the Middle East as related to everything else and design policies based on that fact. That involves filling the senior levels of the administration, the State Department, and the National Security Council Staff with people who truly understand the region and can think strategically. If he does this, President Obama can actually start putting the US on the right track to a viable way out of the Syrian tragedy and to fashioning a coherent approach to the Middle East as a whole.

by Robert E. Hunter

Following the US-Russian agreement, the Syrian government’s chemical weapons must now be destroyed. To do this without putting UN employees at impossible risk, the Syrian civil war must also stop. To do that requires a plan by the Obama administration and others. To do that requires a realistic [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Robert E. Hunter

Following the US-Russian agreement, the Syrian government’s chemical weapons must now be destroyed. To do this without putting UN employees at impossible risk, the Syrian civil war must also stop. To do that requires a plan by the Obama administration and others. To do that requires a realistic goal — not just “victory” for the rebels — but which ones?

At best, last week’s diplomacy puts the Obama administration back at Square One before the major chemical weapons attacks on August 21. Still, there are differences. Firstly, the threat of force, strongly put forth by the president in his dramatic speech to the nation last Tuesday, is in fact off the table. For this to be otherwise would require some triggering mechanism of Syrian government “non-compliance,” and Russia would have to concur. It would also return President Obama to the dilemma of trying to get Congressional and public approval for US military force. Two non-starters.

In fact, the debate on the use of force is mostly about US domestic politics. The president should draw upon the famous quotation misattributed to Vermont Senator George Aiken during the Vietnam War: “Declare victory and get out.”

Secondly, the US can no longer ignore what has been happening in Syria and must ramp up its diplomatic efforts.

Thirdly, Russia is now directly involved in Middle East diplomacy. Getting it to “butt out” now is also a non-starter. Maybe President Vladimir Putin will see advantages in genuinely working toward a broader settlement in Syria and elsewhere in the region. The price: Russia will henceforth be “in” and will have to be recognized as more than just a successor to the country whipped in the Cold War.

Both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan knew how to change bad news to good in foreign policy: the former by “going to China” and making possible withdrawal from Vietnam; the latter by proposing to Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik that the US and USSR get rid of all nuclear weapons, an ice-breaker that helped end the Cold War.

For Obama, “changing the subject” in Syria and the broader Middle East should include the following components:

• Stop insisting that the possible use of force against Syria “remains on the table.” It has no further value and just keeps alive the debate over US “credibility.”
• Recognize that the Syrian government will not negotiate when the outcome is predetermined (the departure of President Bashar al-Assad). If President Obama can’t for domestic political reasons back off from this second “red line,” at least the Alawite community needs cast-iron assurances that it will not be butchered following a deal and can continue to play a major political role.
• Pursue a peace process relentlessly as an honest broker, with all other interested outside countries, co-chaired with Russia and under UN auspices.
• Tell US Arab allies whose citizens export Islamist fundamentalism or fund weapons for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere to “cut it out.”
• Help restrain the wider Sunni-Shia civil war in the region, in part through demonstrating that the US will remain strategically engaged, while acting as an honest broker.
• Take advantage of Iran’s new presidency to propose direct US-Iranian talks and pursue a nuclear agenda that has a serious chance of success, as opposed to past US demands that Iran give us what we want as a precondition. Recognize publicly that we respect Iran’s legitimate security interests, as we rightly demand that Tehran reciprocate.
• Explore possible compatible interests with Iran in Afghanistan, Iraq, freedom of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, an Incidents at Sea Agreement (as the US and Soviet Union did in 1972) – and perhaps even over Syria.
• Engage the Europeans more fully in both political and economic developments in the Middle East and North Africa, as part of a new Transatlantic Bargain.
• Start shifting the US focus in the region from military to political and economic tools of power and influence. Put substance behind the spirit of Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech that did so much for US standing with the region’s people.
• Propose a long-term security framework for the Middle East, in which all countries can take part; all will oppose terrorism (including its inspiration), all will respect the legitimate security interests of its neighbors, and all will search for confidence-building measures.
• Engage all interested states (including Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan, and India) in developing a framework for Afghanistan after 2014.
• Recognize that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations can only succeed when Israel’s security concerns (Egypt, Syria, and Iran) are addressed and the blockade of Gaza ends.

Other steps may be needed, but all elements in the Middle East must be considered together. The US must exercise leadership. It must primarily work for regional security, political and economic development, be the security provider of last resort, honor its commitments, act as an honest broker, and prove itself worthy of trust.

by Wayne White

Amidst rumors that Washington finally decided to provide arms at least to selected Syrian opposition fighters, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the US would do little more than increase its non-lethal aid to the opposition. Rebel disappointment has been intense, and such limited assistance will not [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Wayne White

Amidst rumors that Washington finally decided to provide arms at least to selected Syrian opposition fighters, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the US would do little more than increase its non-lethal aid to the opposition. Rebel disappointment has been intense, and such limited assistance will not have a major impact on the military effectiveness of the opposition or hasten an end to the fighting.

Last week Secretary Kerry said there would be an increase in non-lethal aid to the opposition, with rebel fighters gaining access to military rations and medical supplies. A US official clarified that this aid would only go to carefully vetted rebel groups, with Kerry emphasizing that opposition elements “sharing our values must set an example” by avoiding regime-like brutality and Islamic extremism. In defense of this limited assistance, the US Central Command’s General James Mattis told the Senate this week that the situation inside Syria is currently too complicated for the provision of lethal aid. Finally, earlier this week in a news conference in Qatar (which is believed to be providing munitions to the rebels), Kerry acknowledged that others are doing so, but with “greater guarantees” that arms and ammunition are reaching only moderate groups.

Meanwhile, the European Union upped the ante a bit more than the US by allowing its Syria sanctions to permit the supply of armored vehicles and non-lethal military equipment to opposition combatants if the aim is to protect civilians. Likewise, just yesterday the British seemed to move in step with the EU in saying the UK would provide armored vehicles, body armor and training, though still deeming this assistance as non-lethal.

In parallel to recent Western decisions related to such aid, UN Syrian peace envoy Lahkdar Brahimi, the French, the Russians and the US, have been discussing various seemingly vague notions of bringing representatives of the opposition together with those of the regime in an attempt to end the fighting. The regime now says it is willing to do so, but the rebels, overall, have held back. A pro-Assad Russia clearly views any Western aid to the rebels as disruptive in this context, but efforts aimed at some sort of negotiated solution have been going on for quite some time without any tangible progress.

Predictably, with far higher expectations of Western aid, the opposition has been appalled. In a news conference in Rome with Kerry, the embittered president of the Syrian opposition’s Syrian National Coalition, Moaz al-Khatib, said: “Many sides…focus (more) on the length of the rebel fighter’s beard than the blood of the children being killed.” A rebel commander in the battered northern city of Aleppo also said that lack of arms was the main obstacle to victory over the regime, but rebel fighters had to go on fighting without waiting for such assistance.

Ironically, had there been a decision by the US, the UK and the EU to provide arms to selected, relatively more moderate opposition combatants, even that might not have provided the rebels with a decisive military boost. After over two years of regime brutality, heavy fighting and widespread destruction, large numbers of opposition fighters have been radicalized and many extremist jihadists have entered Syria to join the fight against the Assad regime. For some time now, Muslim extremist rebel groups have been leading the fight and inflicting the most damage on the regime. So supplying moderates exclusively might do little to assist those who have become the proverbial “tip of the spear” in the uprising’s most important battles.

Even prior to this disappointment opposition leaders in exile — but especially rebel fighters and Syrian civilians supporting the uprising inside the country — had become steadily more embittered by two years of Western hand-wringing over providing military help.  And no wonder: while caution and indecision has reigned in Western capitals, the death toll in Syria has reportedly reached 70,000 and the number of Syrian refugees in neighboring countries reportedly just topped one million.

Regime forces continue to fight back desperately (and with characteristic brutality) despite assaults by rebel groups in every Syrian province. And, making this violence more like the civil war it has been labeled as by many, the Assad regime still may retain the loyalty of a substantial slice of the population. Of the estimated 12-13% of the populace that is Alawite (Assad’s own community) or vaguely similar Shi’a, most back the regime. Likewise, a large majority of the 10% of Syrians who are Christian have stood by the regime in fear of Muslim extremism. Ethnic Kurds — around 8-9% of the population — have been wary of both sides, providing rebels with only limited help. And, finally, even a minority of Syria’s large Sunni Arab majority is too vested in the regime militarily, in its security services, various businesses, or like-mindedly secular to break with it in the face of a potential Islamist takeover.

So it is possible that maybe as much as 40-45% of the population either has not joined the opposition or potentially represents a pool of manpower and support for Assad’s forces. Continued support for the regime in some important quarters remains a daunting challenge for the rebels, especially since many within pro-regime constituencies are fighting hard alongside the regime because they believe — perhaps with good reason at this point — that they would suffer greatly if the rebels prevail.

The upshot of the latest decision on the part of the US and the West to hold back on precisely what rebels battling inside Syria need most (whether justified or not) is the inevitable prolongation of the mayhem that has been progressively destroying Syria.

Photo: Women walk past destoryed shops in Al Qusayr, Syria. Credit: Sam Tarling/IPS.