More gore than glory

Today marks five years since the start of the then peaceful Syrian uprising, which has covered no one in glory and many in gore: a quarter million dead, more than half the country chased from their homes, more than 4 million refugees and hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage and billions in lost economic production. Large parts of Syrian cities have been reduced to rubble. The Islamic State occupies a substantial slice of the country while somewhat less lethal extremists control other, smaller slices, all too often in league with people who might have preferred to be counted as moderates.

No one can be proud of what the past five years have wrought.

President Putin has however announced himself satisfied with what the Russians have achieved in the past six months. He has ordered the withdrawal of at least some forces from Syria, though he will keep the base they have operated from as well as the air defense system they installed. The Russians will be able to return in force quickly if need be.

Some Russian objectives have certainly been achieved. Moscow:

• blocked opposition advances in Latakia that might soon have brought down Assad
• stymied any American efforts to install a no-fly or “safe” zone
• demonstrated that little can be decided in Syria without Russian cooperation
• countered growing Iranian influence on the Assad regime
• increased its own leverage on Assad.

The Russian withdrawal, even if only partial and reversible, is a strong signal to Assad that he needs to change tack and get serious at the negotiating table in Geneva, where proximity talks started yesterday.

But it would be a mistake to expect too much from the Russians.They cannot buy into creating what Vice President Biden calls “a credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian system, a new constitution and free and fair elections.” Doing so would guarantee installation of a Sunni-dominated regime that would quickly defenestrate the Russians at the first opportunity. The best that can be hoped from Moscow is that it will agree to some Alawaite general to replace Assad, thereby maintaining the autocracy as well as Russia’s interests and privileged position in Latakia and Tartous.

Washington, which clearly has hurt its own interests by failing to act earlier on Syria, has seemed for months to be backing off the demand that Assad must go, but the Syrian opposition remains committed to that goal and major parts of it will continue fighting until he does. The Geneva talks may somehow bridge the gap on the future of Assad, presumably by leaving him in place temporarily but insisting that he face a serious election in 18 months time, as the UN Security Council has mandated.

It is however hard for me to see him sitting still while a free and fair election is prepared, unless he can be certain that the opposition will go to the polls so divided that he can again win. More likely, he would just prepare the ballots and boxes carefully. Who is going to monitor an election in a Syria?

The only people courageous enough to do so are the intrepid folks who staff Syrian civil society organizations. They are reporting lots of ceasefire violations, but violence is down because the Russians and Iranians have stopped their massive offensive and are picking off the morsels they want piecemeal rather than wholesale. The Western press has focuseed on the relative calm, not the continuing advances. That is not surprising, since they haven’t got many journalists on the ground inside Syria.

What is the best we can hope for? It would certainly be good if De Mistura gets some sort of commitment to the UN plan, which calls for a transitional government, a new constitution and elections. That would be real progress, if only because it would set up benchmarks on a clear path forward. But I am not holding my breath. There may still be more gore than glory ahead.