Not promising

With the strategically placed town of Qusayr about to fall to Syrian army and Lebanese Hizbollah forces, the Syrian opposition coalition (SOC) is saying it won’t attend “Geneva II” peace talks without an end to the siege of Qusayr and a guarantee that any political settlement will ensure Bashar al Asad steps down.  Even if those things were to happen magically, it is unclear who would represent the opposition at peace talks, as the SOC has been meeting in Istanbul and struggling painfully to broaden its base even as revolutionaries inside Syria complain loudly about its ineffectiveness.

The regime, emboldened by success on the battlefield and Russia’s decision to provide advanced air defenses, will not agree to either SOC condition.

Where does this leave the US?

We are left holding the diplomatic bag, trying to deliver a political solution in conditions that are not ripe for a settlement.  Moscow and Tehran, while claiming to want a political solution and criticizing the West and its Gulf allies (Saudi Arabia and Qatar) for support to the revolutionaries, have been busily bolstering the Asad regime on the battlefield.  President Obama is said to have ordered up plans for a no-fly zone, but there is no sign he is serious about implementing them in the face of continued Russian and Chinese vetoes at the UN Security Council.

There is also no sign as yet that the regime can reassert its authority over all of Syria.  Large parts of both the north and the south are in revolutionary hands.  But the regime has a good chance of securing the route from Damascus to the Alawite heartland in the west and the port at Tartus.  Homs is likely the next big battlefield.  Government forces there have been making slow progress against rebels in the city center.  It may well fall with a whimper rather than a bang.

Meanwhile sectarian conflict is spreading to Lebanon and Iraq, even as both those countries export fighters into Syria.  The involvement of Lebanese Hizbollah has important military implications not only within Syria but also in Lebanon and vis-a-vis Israel.  Turkey has long harbored the Syrian opposition forces and has suffered a number of military and terrorist attacks from Syria.  The sad fact is that only a quick (and unlikely) end to the civil war in Syria will save its neighbors from refugee flows, terrorist bombs, sectarian conflict,and the risk that they too may end up embroiled in a regional Levantine war.

So what is to be done?

If, like me, you are of the school that says diplomacy is getting other people to do what you want them to do, you’ve got to have doubts whether convening peace talks at this point is going to produce a settlement, however much you might like that to happen.  They could be useful in clarifying positions, unifying the opposition, establishing some principles, making some contacts and defining better what is at issue, but it is highly unlikely that you are going to get a settlement when both sides think, however unrealistically, they may gain from more fighting and worry that an agreement to lay down arms could lead to slaughter when the other side fails to abide.

There is no trust at this point between the Asad regime and the revolutionaries.  Neither side believes the other is serious about negotiating or about implementing a negotiated agreement.  Unless one side or the other manages a military breakout that today seems unlikely, we are a long way from the end in Syria, which means the region will be under serious strain for a long time to come.