Tag: Turkey
Obama’s Syria options
Russia has in the last ten days deployed a forward operating base and ground troops in Syria, bombarded opposition forces the US supports, intentionally attacked hospitals, repeatedly violated a NATO ally’s (Turkey’s) air space and has launched long-range cruise missile attacks from the Caspian Sea. Russia is at war in Syria and signaling determination to win at any cost.
How should the US react?
Let’s assume direct military action (destroying the Russian base near Latakia, for example) is out. The United States does not want to go to war with Russia over Syria. Great power wars have a way of spinning out of control, with unintended consequences not likely to be worth our while. What else can Barack Obama do?
- Nothing. Or more precisely he can continue to denounce the Russian behavior as self-defeating and counter-productive, as well as likely to put Moscow into a quagmire from which it will find it difficult to emerge without costly consequences. The main difficult with continuing this policy is that it risks projecting an image of weakness and inviting more Russian aggression. It isn’t likely to do much for Barack Obama’s legacy either.
- Push the Syrian opposition into a negotiated solution that leaves Assad in place. This is what some close to the current administration have argued for. It is the most likely result of current UN mediation efforts. It would amount to surrendering Syria back to Bashar al Assad and solidifying Moscow’s and Tehran’s hold on the country. The problem with this idea is that it is unlikely to end the war, because a large part of the opposition will continue fighting, led by its most extreme elements. The Sunni world would regard this outcome as confirming America’s bad faith, dramatically reducing Washington’s influence in the Middle East.
- Mirror Russian behavior in Ukraine. Moscow has installed a forward operating base in a third country and is acting against forces we support at the request of a friendly government in Damascus. The US could install a forward operating base in Ukraine and even act against the rebel forces Russia supports, at the request of the friendly government in Kiev. This would risk a direct clash with Russian forces, but it is noteworthy that Moscow calmed the war in Ukraine before striking in Syria, suggesting that it doubts its own capability to act in both places at the same time. The US military should not have the same problem.
- Mirror Russian behavior in Syria. Like Moscow, Washington could strike against people it considers terrorists inside Syria: Hizbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are both designated by Washington as terrorist organizations and both operate inside Syria. There is no logical reason to limit US action to Sunni extremists. The Shia variety is no more appetizing. Moscow’s action will make it an enemy in the Sunni world. The US is already an enemy in Iran and has little to lose there. Some Iranians would be happy to see the more extreme parts of their Islamic Republic forced to withdraw from Syria.
- Ratchet up sanctions. Putin is upping the ante in the hope of proving himself indispensable to a solution in Syria and using a political solution there to wriggle out of sanctions. We don’t need to allow him to do that, but could instead work with European allies, whose interests in stemming the flow of refugees will be hurt by the Russian military action, to “see” him and double down. Moscow is feeling the pinch of both sanctions and lower oil prices. If the Europeans and Americans can stick together, either Putin will break or the Russians will break him. Popularity doesn’t last forever even in an autocracy if the autocrat can’t deliver.
- Prevent Syrian helicopters from flying. The Syrian Air Force drops its “barrel bombs” on civilian areas from a relatively few remaining helicopters. Such attacks violate international humanitarian law. The UN Security Council has asked that they stop. Making clear that if they fly they will be destroyed, either in the air or on the ground, would be a relatively easy move and would signal a willingness to rebalance the military equation in the opposition’s direction.
- Increase support for the Syrian Interim Government. The war in Syria is unlikely to be won or lost on the battlefield. Who governs best will win in the end, both at the negotiating table and in the hearts and minds of the Syrians. Our allies in the Syrian opposition need a much more concerted effort to help win the civilian contest. Their capabilities have improved. But support arrives fragmented and irregularly. It should be constant and unified. The amounts may sound big–I would guess they need hundreds of million per year to make a real impact–but that is a lot cheaper than war.
Note the absence from my list of increasing humanitarian aid. We are already spending billions on it. The time has come to expect Russia, which is now causing humanitarian problems in Syria, to step up. Washington should tell Moscow that a contribution of $1 billion per year to UN relief in Syria is the minimum expected.
The trouble with writing an “options” post like this one is that someone will inevitably claim that I supported one or the other of these ideas. So I need to be explicit: I am inclined toward 5, 6 and 7, though I confess to thinking 4 is also appealing.
We should be thinking about all of them and not crossing them off the list too soon. If Putin keeps pushing, sooner or later we’ll need to push back. Force may need to be a last resort, but it should not come too late to make a difference.
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Governing Syria
I am writing from Gaziantep in southern Turkey, where I’ve enjoyed a week’s worth of meetings over the last three days. I came to have an upclose look at the Syrian Interim Government (SIG) and some of the rest of the Syrian exile presence in this bustling city of 1.5 million located 60 kilometers or so north of the border, including both nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and a couple of quangos (quasi-nongovernmental organizations). That is what I would call the Local Administration Council Unit (LACU) and the Assistance Coordination Unit (ACU), which are creations of the Syrian Opposition Council that predate the SIG.
Sorry for the acronyms. War generates them. It’s not only the Pentagon.
It is easy enough sitting in Washington to hear the worst about the SIG, SOC, LACU and ACU. President Obama himself has several times stated baldly that the Syrian opposition is incapable of taking over the country. The Syrian NGOs and quangos also come in for a great deal of disdain, as they are heavily dependent on US and European funding.
I can’t say the skeptics are entirely wrong. But they are definitely focusing on the empty part of the glass. What I’ve happily found here are serious people doing serious things with minimal resources and a great deal of commitment and optimism, despite the vagaries of international support.
Let me start with the SIG. It was created by the Syrian Opposition Coalition, a quasi-legislative body recognized by the US and other governments as the political (as distinct from the legal) representative of the Syrian people. The SIG looks like a government in exile: it has a prime minister, a deputy prime minister and ten ministries.
Some of these ministries have impact on the ground inside Syria. The education ministry approves curriculum and administers school examinations in “liberated” areas. The health ministry is said to have mobilized thousands of volunteers inside Syria. If you are an ordinary Syrian unable or unwilling to leave, it is no small thing that your kids are still going to school (even if not likely in a school building, as the regime has bombed most of those). And getting them vaccinated against polio is a big deal since the outbreak in eastern Syria a couple of years ago.
But the SIG has little traction with the armed groups fighting both the Assad regime and extremist groups like Jabhat al Nusra (an Al Qaeda affiliate) and the Islamic State. No one I met pretends that the Defense Ministry plays much of a role in the ongoing warfare. Located outside Syria without a defined and stable relationship with the fighting groups, the SIG looks to some like a Potemkin government sketched on flimsy paper with little governing authority.
I found at the top of the SIG a strong desire–even commitment–to move inside Syria, an ambition that has existed however for years without being realized. I was told an order to relocate the Education Ministry into an opposition-controlled area of northern Syria is already in effect. The best prospect for moving the rest of the SIG into Syria–until the Russians entered the war in recent days–was an area Turkey calls “the rectangle,” a 98-kilometer stretch of its border about 60-70 kilometers deep into Syria that the SIG was expecting to see cleared of its current IS rulers and protected from air and ground bombardment by the regime.
Civilians in Gaziantep, both Syrians and internationals, have been actively planning to move quickly into this area, once IS is cleared from it, with the essentials of post-war reconstruction: security, rule of law, governance, economic activities and humanitarian relief. Local councils for the main population centers already operate outside the “rectangle” but inside Syria. Plans for local police forces and border control are being drawn up. The SIG is surveying public facilities and potential economic activities in the area as well as planning to build accommodations for returning refugees on state-owned land. The Americans have hosted a “table top” simulation for civilian agencies to identify needs and capabilities, Syrian and international. Europeans are hoping that liberating the “rectangle” will help to stem the flow of Syrians out of Turkey into the Union.
No one yet knows whether the Russian air attacks will cancel these plans, but at the very least they are complicating the situation. How can the “rectangle” be protected from Russian attacks, which have focussed not on IS but on the Free Syrian Army? The Russian bombardment is driving younger Syrian fighters towards the Islamic State rather than away from it.
Moderate opposition Syrians are dismayed. In their eyes, what Putin has done merits a strong reaction. He is attacking the people America has said it supports. While they nod knowingly at President Obama’s assertion that Syria will be a quagmire for the Russians, Syrians think American failure to respond looks weak and vacillating. It will lengthen the war. I find it hard to disagree.
The Syrians I spoke with are also concerned about UN envoy De Mistura’s effort to set up four working groups to discuss issues that would have to be resolved in any peace settlement. They question the composition of the working groups and view the effort as a step backwards from the UN’s own Geneva 1 communique, which called for a mutually agreeable transitional governing body with full executive authority.
Few in the opposition would agree to any transition in which Bashar al Assad is not deprived of presidential powers early in the game. Most believe opposition fighters, especially but not only the more extremist ones, will continue the war if Bashar remains in place. The SOC is considering withdrawing from the UN effort, though it will come under a lot of international community pressure to participate. Many Syrians here want a negotiated solution, but not one that perpetuates the dictatorship and denies the country’s citizens the right to govern themselves.
Next up: the local administrative councils, the assistance coordination unit and the nascent Free Syria University, which represent perhaps the best the Syrian opposition has to offer.
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Russia in Syria
Anastasia Levchenko of Sputnik International, which thinks Putin at the UN showed Obama who is in charge, asked me some questions the day before yesterday. I replied:
Q: Russia is currently not planning to participate in any military operations on the territory of Syria or other countries, Putin said. “But we are thinking of how to intensify our work both with President [Bashar] al-Assad and our partners in other countries,” Putin said in the interview.
Should this statement calm down Western states, or are they hyping the topic of allegedly possible military presence of Russia in Syria out of political reasons, to have political pressure on Moscow?
A: President Putin is splitting hairs. Installing a major base at Latakia is already a significant military operation. If he means that Russia does not intend to conduct offensive operations, I’ll be surprised if he can keep to that pledge. Extremists will attack the Russian base. How will Moscow react?
Put it this way: if the US had just installed an air base with a couple of thousand personnel in Ukraine to support what it regards as the legitimate Kiev government, would Moscow view that as escalation of the conflict there?
Q: Putin also mentioned that the opinion that the resignation of Bashar Assad would contribute to the fight against the Islamic State extremist group is nothing but “anti-Syrian propaganda.” He recommended Western partners to forward their wishes regarding Assad’s resignation to the Syrian population, who are the ones to decide the future of the country.
Do you agree that it is propaganda, or can Assad’s resignation indeed contribute to the fight against the Islamic State?
A: The Syrian people have been voting with their feet in peaceful demonstrations and with arms against Bashar al Assad for more than four and a half years. The issue for the US is not his resignation, but rather a negotiated political transition in which he loses power. No one in the West talks simply of his resignation. That is a straw man Putin invented.
Q: The Syrian conflict can only be resolved by strengthening existing government institutions, encouraging them to engage in a dialogue with opposition groups and by carrying out political reforms, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated.
In this context, what do you think of the establishment of a coordination structure to fight the Islamic State militants by Russia, Syria, Iran and Iraq?
A: I think Iraq can use all the help it can get. If this helps, so be it.
As for Syria, a large part of the non-extremist opposition is not interested in strengthening Bashar al Assad and will fight so long as it sees no clear end of him.
Russia needs to worry a bit more than it has about appearing to align itself in Syria against the majority Sunni population.
Q: In the interview Putin also said he had personally informed the heads of Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia about the establishment of a coordination structure.
Do you think these countries might be interested in joining the structure? Who else? Any Western countries?
Q: I doubt Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia will join this coordination structure. They are much more likely to urge in response a strengthened Western Coalition. I understand they are meeting in New York with the US at this very moment.
Then yesterday Umid Niayesh of the Azerbaijani Trend News Agency also asked some questions. I answered:
Q: Russia has decided to play more active role in Syria, sending military equipments and troops to support Syrian government which is also a close ally of Tehran.
How can it affect the balance of power in the Middle East?
A: I don’t think this Russian deployment of a couple of thousand troops and a couple of dozen warplanes affects the balance of power in the Middle East in any significant way. It is intended to shore up Bashar al Assad, whose forces have been weakening and appeared to be unable to stem the advance of insurgents southwest from Idlib towards Latakia and Tartous, where Russia maintains port facilities.
I note the contrast between President Putin’s claim in an interview in the US last weekend that Russia will not conduct military operations in Syria but only support the Syrian government and the widely reported strikes by Russian warplanes against Islamic State targets, which are inconsistent with his statement. It seems to me Russia has put itself on the slippery slope towards much greater involvement in the Syrian war, with significant casualties likely.
Q: Can it lead to formation of a new coalition, with Iran and Russia as its main actors?
A: Iran and Russia have been together in supporting Bashar al Assad for the past four and a half years. Their effort to help him suppress the insurgency has so far failed. Many in the West see the Russian move as competitive with Iran, to beef up Moscow’s influence in Damascus.
Q: How will it affect the regional countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia?
A: Not much. Turkey is mainly concerned with the Kurdish forces on its border and wants to create a protected area in northern Syria, one not controlled by Kurds, to which it can repatriate some refugees. Neither of those concerns is much affected by the Russian deployment. Saudi Arabia has supported the insurgency against Assad and the Western anti-ISIS Coalition. I expect it to keep on doing those things.
Q: May it lead to change of US policy towards the region?
A: I didn’t hear anything in President Obama’s speech yesterday to suggest that. He is clearly willing to talk with Iran and Russia about Syria but we are still a long way from agreement on what to do.
Q: Mohammad Nahavandian, chief of staff of President Hassan Rouhani, has said that further cooperation between the US and Iran on fighting terrorism in the region could be possible if the United States fulfills its commitments in the Iran nuclear deal to lift sanctions. On the other hand Khamenei has emphasized that the two parties’ co-op will never go beyond nuclear issue. What do you think? Is it possible that Tehran and Washington cooperate in regional issues?
A: Sure, it is possible Tehran and Washington may cooperate on regional issues, as they have in the past on Afghanistan. But it is unlikely in Syria because their understanding of Bashar al Assad’s role there is dramatically different. Tehran (and Moscow) see him as essential to fighting ISIS. Washington thinks there will be no end to the insurgency and ISIS so long as he remains in power.
I can’t help but note the apparent contradiction in my remarks about the Russian base, but the questions asked were different. In the first interview, the question was about Putin’s remark minimizing the significance of the base, so I responded emphasizing its significance, in particular for possible Russian casualties. In the second interview, the question was about changing the military balance in the Middle East. The base is a significant escalation in Syria, but it does little to change the overall military balance in the Middle East, where the US and its allies are overwhelmingly dominant in conventional military strength.
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Tatters
American policy in Syria has supported the “moderate” opposition and sought the removal of Bashar al Assad. Four and a half years into the rebellion there, extremists have largely sidelined the moderate opposition in the center of the country. Russia and Iran are doubling down on their support for Bashar al Assad, who is well on towards fulfilling his prophecy “either me or the jihadis.”
Washington has also wanted to protect Syria’s neighbors from its civil war. Efforts to contain the war’s effects have been no more successful than the efforts to win it. With more than 4 million refugees unsettling Syria’s neighbors and 7 million displaced inside the country, it will take decades to restore the region to some semblance of order. The Islamic State has taken over one third of Iraq. The war has embroiled Turkey in renewed conflict with its own Kurds. Lebanon and Jordan hang by threads to a semblance of order. Israel faces extremists just a few miles from the Syrian territory it occupies on the Golan Heights.
Attention in the press is focused on the Pentagon’s failed efforts over the past year to train and equip viable “moderate” forces to fight against the Islamic State in Syria. Few Syrians sign up. They prefer to fight Assad. The vetting process is long and arduous. Of the few who have gone back to Syria, most have ended up dead, captured or intimidated into turning over equipment and weapons to extremists. The rebalancing of the military equation that John Kerry had rightly recognized as necessary to altering the outcome in a direction the US would find agreeable is simply not occurring.
Enter the Russians. Moscow’s deployment of fighting forces, including attack aircraft, to Latakia would not be necessary if the Assad regime were doing well. Moscow’s immediate military goal is to block the advance of opposition forces towards western Syria, where both the heartland of the Alawite population and Russia’s naval base lie. Its bigger purpose is to protect the regime and foil America’s intention of replacing it with something resembling a democracy. Moscow won’t distinguish in its targets between extremists and moderates but will seek to rebalance the military equation in a direction opposite to what Kerry had in mind.
The advancing opposition forces in the center of the country are mostly Sunni extremists, not moderates. Extremists have agreed to a population exchange with Hizbollah that will clear Sunnis from near the strategically important border with Lebanon and Shia from extremist-held areas farther north. Population exchange aids cantonalization: Syria will soon be a patchwork of areas of control: the regime in Damascus and the west, Kurds along much of the northern border with Turkey, relatively moderate opposition in the south and some Damascus suburbs, assorted Islamist extremists in the center and the Islamic State in the center east. Enclaves will be overrun or traded. Confrontation lines will congeal. Stalemate will ensue.
None of this is good news for either Syrians or Americans. But it is not the worst news.
The viability of the patches will depend on two factors: the strength of the military forces that control them and how effectively they are governed. The regime has been protecting and governing the areas it controls well enough that they have attracted a significant inflow of people, including many whose sympathies are with the opposition. The Islamic State governs brutally in the territory it controls, but has lost some in the north to Kurdish forces, who have set up representative governing structures that include Arabs and appear to be functioning relatively well, their lives made easier by the de facto truce between the Kurds and the Assad regime.
The relative moderates have arguably been less effective than the regime, the Islamic State and the Kurds in governing the areas they control. This is important. The war can be lost on the battlefield. But it has to be won in city hall. The local councils that have formed more or less spontaneously in many “liberated” areas are not doing well. Strapped for cash and untended by the opposition Syrian Interim Government, in many areas they are unable to deliver much except political squabbling among themselves. While unquestionably better than nothing, they lack both legitimacy and technical capabilities as well as connections to a broader political framework. Western aid to local councils has sometimes done more harm than good.
The US military effort in Syria is visibly in tatters. But it won’t matter much if the less visible civilian effort conducted in areas controlled by relative moderates doesn’t improve dramatically.
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Uncensored
Iran’s Fars News Agency asked me some good questions. Parts of the interview were included in this article, but parts were also cut, as one might expect. I am publishing here the full text, which I hope will find its way into print also in Iran:
Q: What is your opinion about Iran’s plan to resolve the Syria tension?
A: As I understand Iran’s “plan,” it involves 1) a ceasefire, 2) formation of a national unity government, 3) a rewritten constitution and 4) national elections. This is an outline many can accept, even if some might quarrel with the order.
But “the devil is in the details” we say in English:
1) How does the ceasefire come about? Who monitors and enforces it? What sanctions are there against those who violate it? What if some armed groups refuse to participate in it?
2) Who participates in the national unity government? Does Bashar al Assad step aside or remain as president? How is the security of opposition people participating in a national unity government ensured?
3) Who rewrites the constitution? Within what guidelines? How is a new constitution approved?
4) Who calls elections? Who supervises them? Who ensures a safe and secure environment for the campaign as well as the elections? Who counts the votes?
I suspect there will be many more differences over these questions than over the four-point “plan.”
Q: The UK recently announced that the conflict in Syria will not be resolved unless Russia and Iran use their influence on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to help reach a political solution. What do these signals mean?
A: I’m not sure what the UK meant. It is certainly the consensus in Europe and the US that there is no political solution in Syria if Bashar al Assad insists on staying in power. His opposition won’t stop fighting as long as he is there. Iranian and Russian support enables him to remain. I see no sign that either Moscow or Tehran is prepared to risk losing their influence in a post-Assad Syria, which will surely resent the enormous support they have provided him.
Q: What are Turkey’s roles in Syria and the region? Do you confirm its policy in the Middle East?
A: Turkey has four main interests in Syria: it wants Bashar al Assad gone, it wants Kurds in Iraq and Syria to stop supporting the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey, it wants defeat of the Islamic State, and it wants Syrian refugees to return to Syria. The proposed “safe zone” in northern Syria and the Turkish attacks on the Kurds and Islamic State aim to achieve all four objectives, though success is still a long way off.
Q: We know that Turkey had zero foreign policy sometime and it had gains some achievements but today it has taken distance from that. What were and are their problems?
A: As noted above, it has problems with Bashar al Assad, with the Kurds, with the Islamic State and with refugees.
Q: Why is the west silent on Turkey’s support for Daesh?
A: The West has longed implored Turkey to close its border to Daesh fighters and supplies. They have tightened up a lot since ISIS attacked inside Turkey.
It is a figment of Tehran’s imagination that the West is silent. Or maybe a creation of Iran’s propagandists. One of the things most resented in the West is Iran’s implication that the West is not really opposed to Daesh. Nonsense is the polite word we use for that allegation.
Q: Has the US-led coalition succeeded against Daesh?
A: No, but it has had some successes, taking back about one-quarter of the territory Daesh once controlled, depriving it of some of its revenue and killing quite a few of its commanders.
That one-quarter is mostly Kurdish-populated territory. Taking back Sunni-populated territory, especially in Iraq, is proving far more difficult.
Q: How can Muslim countries across the region led by Iran stand against Daesh?
A: The Sunni Muslim countries of the region don’t want to be led by Iran. They are fighting Daesh, but as part of a Western-led Coalition. Iran is also fighting Daesh, but coordination is difficult so long as Iran fails to distinguish between Daesh and more moderate Syrian fighters. From the Western and I think Arab perspectives, it looks like Iran is fighting to defend Assad for sectarian reasons more than it is fighting Daesh.
Q: Let’s go to Iraq. How do you evaluate the ongoing Iran/ Iraq relation? What about the future?
A: Iran has supported Iraq’s response to Daesh quickly and effectively, fearing Daesh success in Iraq would mean trouble sooner or later also for Iran.
But it has used the opportunity in particular to support Shia militias (Hashd, Popular Mobilization Units). That is a mistake, because it exacerbates sectarian tensions in Iraq and increases the likelihood of a breakup of the Iraqi state that Tehran says it does not want.
It seems to me that a strong but non-threatening and unified Iraq is what Iran should be aiming for. I don’t see it doing that at present. Instead the IRGC is pursuing a less wise policy of arming and otherwise supporting sectarian forces that will make keeping the Iraqi state together very difficult.
Q: What is your opinion about latest Russia military developments and build up in some parts of Europe and the Arctic? I do not mean Ukraine at all.
A: The Russians have legitimate interests in the Arctic. But past experience suggests they will try to bite off more than they can chew. They are already overextended in Ukraine and the Middle East. Putin has strong domestic political support, but he lacks the money and military capacity to sustain his aggressive foreign policy.
Q: And thank you for your participating. Could you please explain about Iran/West relations after the deal?
A: I don’t see Iran/West relations much changed, except for the prospect of much greater trade and investment, especially between Europe and Iran, once sanctions are lifted. But Iranian authorities have reiterated their hostility to the United States, which always gets a lot of coverage here.
Washington doesn’t care much about that but wants Iran to stop threatening Israel’s existence and subverting Gulf neighbors through a highly sectarian policy of supporting Shia forces (sometimes political, sometimes military), especially in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, Lebanon and Kuwait. Iran and the US share an interest in defeating Daesh, but active cooperation on that requires that Iran stop subversion of American friends and allies in the region. As we know only too well, subversion breeds resentment, not influence.
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Refugees are not the problem
The flow of refugees into Europe from the Middle East and North Africa is now attracting widespread attention. The 71 Syrians who suffocated last week in a truck in Austria, and the three-year-old who drowned in the Mediterranean, have done what close to 250,000 dying in Syria over the past 3.5 years (that’s an average of about 200 per day) could not: they have mobilized public opinion. Germany and Sweden are rightly praised for opening their doors. Hungary is trying to seal itself off. The Americans may take more than the trickle of refugees they have accepted so far, but still an insignificant number. The UN is appealing for funds, which have been sorely lacking. More than $8.4 billion is needed.
But refugees are not the root of the problem. Nor are the ones who arrive in Europe and the US the Syrians most in need or most at risk. They are the symptom–a relatively small and distant one–of a much larger and more challenging problem: the multi-sided conflict in Syria, to which we’ve become unfortunately inured. Four million people have managed to escape Syria, mostly fleeing to neighboring countries. They are the relatively fortunate ones, when not jammed into a truck in Austria or drowning in the Med. Seven million have been displaced inside Syria, where relief is much harder to find.
Of course problems are much more visible when up close and personal. But we need to keep the focus on the disease, not only the spreading ripple of symptoms.
The disease has its origins in the Syrian dictatorship’s response to peaceful pro-democracy protests. Determined to stay in power, it cracked down violently, concentrating its efforts against relative moderates and the majority Sunni community, both of which were a real threat to Bashar al Assad’s hold on power. The natural result was the growth of Sunni extremism, which has helped Bashar demonstrate that the only alternative to his rule is Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. To this day, his forces continue to focus disproportionately not on jihadi terrorism but rather on those who say they want a secular, democratic state.
There is no way to run this history backwards. The extremists will not disappear if Assad falls. It is highly unlikely that relative moderates would replace him. The best we can hope for now is to create some relatively safe places inside Syria where moderates can govern, providing protection for civilians and beginning to service their needs so that they don’t flee.
The northern area that the Americans and Turks are contemplating for this purpose is hardly ideal. Large parts of it are barren rural areas over which control will be hard to establish. Turkomans populate much of the border area with Turkey, along with Kurds against whom the Turks have been fighting. The Kurds already control much of the rest of the border, where the key to making things safer for civilians will be cooperation between them and the Arabs who live both among them and farther south.
The area along the Jordanian/Syrian border in the south is another possible protected zone, one dominated by relatively moderate Sunni insurgents, including some with US training, and the non-Muslim, Arab Druze. The Druze have tried to hold their fire and avoid close alignment with either the regime or the insurgents. Self-preservation is their priority. Bringing them into closer alignment with the insurgents would require giving them the confidence that they will be protected from the vindictive reaction of the regime.
Protected areas north and south would not solve Syria’s problems, but with Coalition (read US plus at least some European and Gulf) support, they might begin to stem the tide. If nothing is done to enable Syrians to remain in their country, it is a virtual certainty that next year’s outflow will be much greater than this year’s, with economic and political consequences for both the neighboring countries and Europe that will dwarf what we are seeing today. But the refugees will still not be the root of the problem.
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