How the West's Folly Brought Humiliation in Syria

The West's obsession with regime change triggered a civil war and the rise of the Islamic State, provoking a Russian reaction which threatens to leave the West sidelined and humiliated

By Alexander Mercouris

October 05, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "RI" -  The West’s fury at the Russian air campaign in Syria is like the tantrum of a spoilt child denied its sweet.

The sweet is the head of President Assad.

US President Obama gave the game away in his first public comments following the Russian air strikes.

Amidst many bitter words, he let the truth slip out:

“The moderate opposition in Syria is one that, if we ever going to have a political transition, we need. And the Russian policy is driving those folks underground or creating a situation in which they are decapacitated and it is only strengthening ISIL.”

Translated into plain English, Obama is complaining the Russian air campaign is destroying the people the US wants to take over Syria.

This comment tells us something else.  This is that the US expects the Russian air campaign to succeed, and the opposition to Assad to be defeated.

This very revealing article in the Daily Beast describes the hand-wringing in Washington as its bluff in Syria is being called.

Behind the bluster, there is no intention to interfere in the Russian air campaign, and rather than face off against the Russian air force, plans for US bombing raids on Syria and for no-fly zones have been called off.

Moreover there is a bipartisan support for this, with war hawks like Hillary Clinton and Senator McCain isolated.

This is consistent with scattered reports that despite its public show of defiance the US has actually heeded the Russian warning to stay out of Syrian air space whilst the Russian air campaign is underway.

That warning was made in an intentionally humiliating way, giving the US just an hour to comply, to rub in the point that the days when the US and its allies could roam freely in the skies of Syria are well and truly over.  

Future overflights and bombing raids will henceforth have to be coordinated with the Russians, at least whilst the Russian air campaign is underway.

Obama of course also complains in his comments that the Russian air campaign, by defeating the so-called “moderate” opposition to President Assad, is helping the Islamic State.

This has become the main theme of Western media commentary over the last few days.

The argument is - to quote Obama again - that

“Russian policy is driving those folks underground or creating a situation in which they are decapacitated and it is only strengthening ISIL”.

The people Obama is referring to - the “folks” who may be “driven underground” or “decapacitated” - are the people the US is supporting in the fight against President Assad.

It is now universally admitted these people are overwhelmingly Sunni militants - in other words armed jihadis - violently opposed to what they see as an apostate secular Alawite led government in Syria. 

The idea that there can be a “moderate jihadi” opposition to President Assad - any more than there was a “moderate jihadi” opposition in Libya to  Muammar Gaddafi - is one that would strike most people as bizarre.  It is in fact an acknowledged fact that many of the “moderate jihadis” fighting President Assad - who the US is supporting - are affiliated to Al-Qaeda.

To say this however is to underestimate the obsessive character of the US's Syrian policy.

US policy is to overthrow President Assad.  The fact most of those fighing President Assad are militant jihadis is neither here nor there.  If “moderate” “liberal” “secular” Syrians cannot overthrow President Assad - and the lesson of the last four years is they cannot - then militant jihadis will have to do.

The result is the absurd situation where the US is now running two covert programmes in Syria at the same time - one to create a jihadi army to fight President Assad; the other to create an army to fight the Islamic State, which also opposes President Assad, but which the US also says it opposes.

The first programme - run by the CIA - has been a relative success.

The second programme - run by the Pentagon - has despite the commitment of $500 million been a total failure.

The reason the US has to have two programmes to create two different armies is because its first army - the jihadi army set up by the CIA to fight President Assad - won't fight the Islamic State.  

As militant jihadis they have far too much in common with the Islamic State to be  prepared to fight it.

This is why the Islamic State has managed to win so much territory at their expense in so short a time.  

Since the US backed jihadis are only motivated to fight President Assad, and will not fight the Islamic State in any meaningful way, when the two come into conflict the US backed jihadis tend to defect to the Islamic State .

The distinction the US therefore makes between a “moderate” armed opposition to President Assad and the Islamic State, has no meaningful ideological - and therefore political - reality.

The only difference between the two groups is that the first - a militant jihadi group supported by the US - is focused on overthrowing President Assad, whilst the second - a militant jihadi group opposed by the US - is focused on expanding its territory.

The victory of either group following the defeat of the Syrian government would however have the same result: the establishment of a violent sectarian jihadi state in Syria.  

In practice, since the Islamic State is by far the better organised of the two groups attracting regular defections from the other group, its eventual victory would be all but certain.

The key point - as Putin said in his UN speech - is that the only force in Syria that can be reliably trusted to fight the Islamic State is the Syrian army, together with its allies the Kurds and Hezbollah.

To pretend otherwise is fantasy, denying the reality of the situation.

What of repeated Western claims that the Syrian government is in some sort of implicit alliance with the Islamic State to weaken the anti-Assad opposition, and is not really fighting it?

Putin has called this anti-Syrian propaganda and he is right.

The problem is not that the Syrian army does not want to fight the Islamic State.  The problem is that the jihadi army the US has created insists on fighting the Syrian army rather than the Islamic State.

Since the Syrian army has its hands full fighting the jihadi army the US has created, it cannot fight the Islamic State, especially since the Islamic State, taking advantage of the situation, has - quite deliberately - focused on expanding its territory at the expense of other jihadi groups, instead of fighting the Syrian army.

If the objective is to defeat the Islamic State, then the Russian policy is the only one that makes sense. 

This is to help the Syrian army fight and defeat the Islamic State.  If that means destroying the US backed jihadis who are fighting the Syrian army, preventing the Syrian army from fighting the Islamic State, then the Russians have shown they will not balk from doing it.  

They are right.  In the situation that exists in Syria now any other approach is not serious, and will end in failure. 

The only alternative is to do what the Russians have been calling for since the first protests in Syria began in 2011: arrange negotiations without preconditions between President Assad and his opponents.

President Assad agreed to this in 2011, and a road map for such negotiations was agreed at a conference in Geneva in 2012.  The negotiations never got underway because the Syrian opposition backed by the US refused to negotiate with President Assad, demanding he resign instead.

This is a demand that the Syrian government concede to the Syrian opposition the victory the Syrian opposition has failed to win on the battlefield, whilst making a precondition for the negotiations a possible outcome of the negotiations.

That is ridiculous, and both the Russians and the Syrian government have repeatedly made clear they will never agree to it.

Whenever the Russians and the Syrian government say no to this demand, which they always do, the Syrian opposition and the US invariably escalate, with a disastrous decision taken in the autumn of 2011 to go to war.

It was that decision to go to war that set the scene for the present disaster.  That a decision to go to war was made at that time was clear to anyone who was following the situation closely.  Here is what I wrote in October 2011:

“Notwithstanding the defeat the western powers on this occasion (have) suffered on the Security Council it would be naive to think that they have abandoned their plans.

In the days just before the vote the western press suddenly filled up with stories about how the protesters having supposedly despaired of peaceful protest were now turning to violent insurrection.  

I take this as a clear sign that arms shipments to the protesters (or perhaps we should now call them rebels) are being stepped up.  There are stories of a rebel army being formed in Turkey and of a rebel Council obviously patterned on the Libyan Transitional Council being set up there.  

Apparently the French government will be the first to recognise this Council just as it was the first to recognise the Libyan Council in the spring.  

One way or the other the war clouds are gathering.”

The logic of war is that the most violent and ruthless people generally come out on top, and that is what has happened in Syria with the rise of the Islamic State.

That in turn has provoked the Russians to act by starting their air campaign.  In doing so the Russians have the support of China, the Eurasian states, and the key regional powers, Iran and Iraq. 

By contrast, as Obama’s plaintive comments and the article in the Daily Beast show, the US has been sidelined.

If the US and West want to save some tatters of credibility out of this debacle, then now is probably their last chance to do what they should have done in 2011, which is get their Syrian proteges to sit down and talk with the Syrian government without preconditions.

If they do that, then there is still a chance a settlement of the Syrian conflict can be agreed, allowing the focus to shift to where it should be, which is fighting the Islamic State.

It has to be said however that with the US backed opposition now dominated by violent jihadists, the chances of successfully doing that now look remote.  Certainly they are far worse than they were back in 2011 or 2012.

If the diplomatic route is to be followed - even at this very late stage - then the US and its allies will have to abandon their insane demand that President Assad go as a precondition for negotiations, and their equally insane demand that the Russians force him to go .

There are some people in the West, like the writer of the article in the Daily Telegraph I attach below (since it is behind a paywall) who appear to understand this.

It is far from clear however that US and Western leaders do.  Despite some optimistic claims to the contrary, the most Western leaders for the moment seem prepared to concede is that President Assad might remain in power for a few months until power is handed over to those the US has groomed to take over.  

This is something to which the Russians will never agree, as Putin made clear in his recent interview with Charlie Rose, when he said

“At no time in the past, now or in the future has or will Russia take any part in actions aimed at overthrowing (a) legitimate government.”

The idea the Russians will shift from this position - or can be bullied or bribed with threats or offers of Syrian bases to do so - is fantastic.  It is an idea that has been repeatedly tested over the last four years, and which has repeatedly been proved to be wrong.  It is incredible that - judging from the ceaseless Western media refrain that Russia “push” Assad into “negotiations” (ie. force him to go) - so many people in the West still don't grasp this.

What the events of the last few weeks show is that the West now has a choice.  Either it revises its strategy, and engages meaningfully with the Russians - and President Assad - to find a way out of the Syrian crisis and to defeat the Islamic State, or the Russians will simply follow through the logic of their position and of their recent actions, and press on with their campaign together with their allies until the the Islamic State has been destroyed.  

That is the objective Putin has declared, and there is no reason to think the Russians will not pursue it until it has been achieved.  The forces that are gathering, not just from Russia but also from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, from within Syria itself, and possibly even from China, are almost certainly enough to achieve it.

The US and the West will in that case find themselves sidelined, becoming bystanders with none of their objectives in Syria achieved.  

If that is the result, then the blame for the humiliation they will suffer will lie in their own intransigence and folly.  The “exceptional country”, it will turn out, is not so exceptional after all.

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The following article was first published in the Daily Telegraph

Fear of the peace: Why Assad is not the main obstacle to a deal on Syria

Big Question: Disagreement on Assad's fate in Syria is not the main obstacle to a peace deal – the real issue is addressing fears of what may follow

By Tom Hill

Russia has upped the ante in the Syrian war, initiating its first military campaign in the Middle East since 1941. Everyone is afraid of the Syrian crisis and where it might lead. Everyone says they want a resolution, most of all to enable unity against the abominable Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil). Yet no international deal is in sight. Why?

The current and long-standing consensus is that this is because of disagreements over Assad’s fate. But this belief is a major error that is hindering a solution to the Syrian crisis – and a cause of the escalation just unleashed by Russia.

Observers of civil wars almost always forget one crucial impediment to peacemaking. In even the most terrible of civil wars, for some there is always a more terrifying threat than the war itself – the wrong peace.

Fear of the peace

This is a lesson pertinent to Syria. The divisions over the “Assad question” are not the cause of the international and regional impasse on Syria; they are instead a manifestation of it – most of all relating to the peace that is expected to follow the war.

For some there is always a more terrifying threat than the war itself – the wrong peace.

For some there is always a more terrifying threat than the war itself – the For some there is always a more terrifying threat than the war itself – the wrong peace peace. some there is always a more terrifying threat than the war itself – the wrong peace.For some there is always a more terrifying threat than the war itself – the wrong peaceWhat are those fears? There are too many to list here, but begin by. For Iran the conflict is not about Assad, or even Syria. It is about Lebanon.

What are those fears? There are too many to list here, but begin by considering Iran’s interests

Due to the historical linkages between Syria and Lebanon, it is impossible for Iran to imagine that Hizbollah, its proxy in southern Lebanon, will survive if neighbouring Syria is ruled by a government actively hostile to Iranian interests. This is an existential issue for Iran because Hizbollah is Iran’s deterrent against Israel. And without safeguards, Iran believes that removing Assad will surely mean the emergence of a sectarian, Sunni-dominated state – which will certainly be hostile to Iran.

This is Iran’s fear of the peace. Without agreements on safeguards that will prevent a sectarian political system and convince Iran there will not be a “tyranny of the majority” in Syria, the Assad question will continue to dominate.

But Assad is secondary, rather than the issue itself, and this indicates a way around the Assad conundrum.

The Russian question

Russia has been more explicit, repeatedly demanding an answer from the West on the question: “if Assad goes, who will replace him?”

Few Western analysts trust President Putin’s statements, but he is being honest in his expressions of concern for what will follow.

For Russia this relates to keeping Syria within their sphere of influence, retaining their Tartus naval base and airbase in Latakia, keeping their privileged relationship with Syria’s military – including lucrative arms deals – and having a sure platform for fighting terrorists that might threaten Russia.

Many Syrians too are afraid of what the end of the war will bring. Non-Sunnis and Kurds are deeply fearful of the prospect of a sectarian, Sunni Arab-dominated political system. They are unable to imagine how such a scenario will include full citizenship, equal rights and protections for minorities. They won’t say it explicitly, as they too yearn for peace, but in their eyes the war is preferable to a peace on those terms.

And without agreed safeguards on the character of the post-conflict political system – agreements that currently do not exist – they will remain convinced that this is what Assad’s departure will mean.

This fear is perhaps the primary driver of loyalty to the Syrian regime.

What does this suggest for negotiations?

Lord Soames, reflecting on the end of the civil war in Zimbabwe in 1980, wrote that the British mediators learnt “to decide first whether the Sunday school treat was going to Bognor or Bournemouth … and discuss later whether it should go by train or coach.” What Lord Soames meant was that before Britain could successfully mediate an agreement on a transitional government and a ceasefire, the parties had to agree first, in broad terms, to the end state that the peace process would deliver.

There needs to be agreement on what they are buying before they are asked to pay the price

The mediators had to neutralise the belligerents’ fear of the peace before they could get them to agree on how to end the war.

In Syria this means that the fear of the peace also needs to be neutralised, as a first step towards effective negotiations – both among Syrians and among the international stakeholders. There are viable constitutional and institutional mechanisms and international agreements that could be negotiated that would reassure Syrians that the post-conflict political system will not become a sectarian tyranny of the Sunni majority.

And there are constitutional and international guarantees that could be negotiated to ensure a democratic Syria will not become, in the eyes of Iran, a threat to Hizbollah in Lebanon. And there are agreements that could be negotiated that reassure Russia that its place in Syria will remain.

These will not end the challenge of the Assad question, but they could remove the fears that make it so difficult to handle.

Four wasted years

But these kinds of agreements take time – time that may have just run out. Four years have been hopelessly wasted in negotiations that always began and ended with the Western demand that Assad must go or, at the most, go after a little while.

It is absurd to think – as Assad’s foes seemed to believe through their latest offers – that conceding that Assad might remain for a few weeks or months could somehow reassure Russia and Iran of their long-term interests in Syria.

It is the long-term character of the Syrian state, its political system and what this means for its foreign relations that has been the primary obstacle to successful negotiations on Syria.

It all comes down to a simple principle of commerce. If Assad is to go, then no one will have to do more to make this happen than Russia, Iran and Syrians themselves. There needs to be agreement on what they are buying before they are asked to pay the price. The Russians just got sick of waiting.

Tom Hill is the director of the Track II Mediation Unit at King’s College London and a lecturer in international conflict resolution at Columbia University in New York

 Alexander Mercouris is a writer on international affairs with a special interest in Russia and law. He has written extensively on the legal aspects of NSA spying and events in Ukraine in terms of human rights, constitutionality and international law. He worked for 12 years in the Royal Courts of Justice in London as a lawyer, specializing in human rights and constitutional law.

His family has been prominent in Greek politics for several generations. He is a frequent commentator on television and speaker at conferences. He resides in London.