The epitome of resolve
AP has published the Syria cease-fire deal that the US government refused to make public. It is instructive, even though the cessation of hostilities is in tatters as Russian and Syrian government forces have launched major attacks focused on Aleppo.
The deal was more or less as anticipated and described in the press: it entailed an effort to stabilize at least parts of Syria by ending attacks on non-extremist forces, thus permitting them to receive humanitarian assistance. Had this happened as agreed for a week, the US and Russia would have jointly targeted extremist forces (ISIS, Jabhat al Nusra and others) while the Syrian air force would have stood down from attacks in designated areas.
Special provisions would have allowed relief to arrive from Turkey to Aleppo in sealed trucks. Checkpoints on the Castello Road north of Aleppo were to be monitored initially by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and later by the UN. The area near the road was to be demilitarized, with both government and opposition forces pulling back. Syrians were supposed to be allowed to leave Aleppo, including fighters with weapons. At least one other route was to be opened into Aleppo.
The joint Russian/American military action against extremists depended on the delineation of areas controlled by Nusra and opposition groups, starting right away but more “comprehensively” once the joint implementation center responsible for coordinating attacks on extremists was established. The Russians have been claiming that the Americans failed to fulfill their commitment to delineation, which also requires separation of more moderate forces from the extremists.
Why hasn’t it worked?
Some blame the failure on a lack of monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. To be sure, this is a complicated agreement with many moving parts that might have been marginally more successful had there been some sort of third-party monitoring.
But fundamentally it hasn’t worked because the parties haven’t really wanted it to or don’t have the leverage required. The Syrian government has the military advantage around Aleppo and wants to finish off the opposition that has controlled parts of the city for years. The Russians, having doubled down on their support for Bashar al Assad, are in no position to undermine their surrogate. The Americans have not provided sufficient support to the opposition to wean it from the extremists, who provide a good deal of the tooth in fighting against the regime.
Secretary of State Kerry is still trying to revive the cessation of hostilities. Foreign Policy has classified this as the textbook definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. But Kerry isn’t nuts. His problem is President Obama, who thinks there is nothing he can do that will improve the situation.
My Republican colleagues see this as a failure of resolve. I don’t. All American presidents since the fall of the Berlin Wall have resisted interventions. All eventually undertook one or more, against their better judgment at the outset. What distinguishes Obama is that he is more resolved, not less. But he is resolved to avoid the slippery slope to “owning” Syria, whereas his critiques wish he would start down it. This is the epitome of resolve, not its failure. Remember: this is a man with two teenage daughters who has spent almost eight years in the White House without a whiff of scandal.
I believe there are still things the President can consider doing about Syria: expanded sanctions, stand-off attacks on helicopters that drop barrel bombs or Syrian aircraft that violate the cessation of hostilities, an ultimatum to get Hizbollah and other Iranian surrogates out of Syria, non-declared attacks on Syrian government command and control. Without these alternatives, Secretary Kerry will not be able to deliver the negotiated political solution that is his avowed goal.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Reconciliation Syrian style
At a roundtable discussion in Washington DC earlier this week, knowledgeable people discussed the local reconciliation and evacuation strategies applied to besieged areas of Syria, including the recent evacuation of the Damascene suburb of Darayya.
On August 28, the Syrian government took full control over Darayya following negotiations with the Darayya Reconciliation Committee and evacuated its civilian population to makeshift centers in Damascus and its fighters to Idlib in northern Syria. This manner of ‘reconciliation’ with Damascus has occurred in a number of cities and towns in Syria. The government uses this approach to establish its authority in opposition held areas.
The process is essentially a negotiation between the Syrian government and an appointed body within the besieged area called the reconciliation committee and composed of local elites. Often local Sharia courts or local councils are repurposed to serve as reconciliation committees. The committee negotiates with the government on behalf of the area that it represents. So long as the reconciliation process is occurring, the Syrian government will provide supplies and minimal services to civilians in the besieged area.
By sending convoys of food and other supplies to the besieged areas, the Syrian government effectively prevents local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from providing substantial humanitarian aid to these areas. If local NGOs, which are usually backed by international NGOs, do provide aid and services, Damascus considers it a violation of the reconciliation process and will cease negotiations and recommence airstrikes. Thus, local NGOs are unable to carry out their missions and often lose the support of the international NGOs as a result.
Once an agreement is reached, the government will transfer all the “unreconciliables” in the area out to either Idlib or Damascus. These unreconciliables usually consist of fighters, humanitarian workers and political activists, though in the case of Darayya the entire population was transferred. This practice of population transfer allows opposition fighters who were fighting losing battles to move north where they can join the fight for Aleppo, one of the most hotly contested areas in Syria.
While it appears that Damascus has the upper hand in these negotiations, the besieged communities hold considerable leverage. The Syrian army has a manpower problem. An effective siege requires a significant number of troops. The longer the besieged area can hold out, the weaker the army will get. Additionally, areas are often targeted because they hold a strategic resource or infrastructure that the government desires. The reconciliation council can leverage that resource to get a better deal out of the negotiations.
An analyst recommended that local NGOs should consider embedding in existing bodies (such as a religious charity or a local business) in order to operate in besieged areas. He also recommended that when considering how to assist besieged areas, we shouldn’t only look at whether the people in these areas are having their day-to-day needs met, but also whether they can sustainably provide for themselves once the government convoys stop coming.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Hidden heroes
Middle East Institute summer interns put this together:
Have faith! There is middle ground.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Possible responses
The Syrian government side ended the still-born ceasefire the Russians and Americans initiated last week with a bang: a double tap attack on a Syrian government-approved aid convoy, destroying half the trucks involved and killing at least a dozen aid workers, including Syrian Red Crescent leaders. We can hope the Russians were not responsible. This is more likely Bashar al Assad’s intentional response to the Coalition attack on Syrian forces near Deir Azzour that mistakenly killed several dozen Syrian troops. According to the Americans, they had informed Russian counterparts in advance of that target and received no objections until after the fact.
Double tap attacks are not accidental but are intended to kill rescue workers when they rush to the site of a previous attack. The State Department spokesperson expressed outrage. That is not enough. An attack of this sort is intended to send a message: Bashar is saying that he is prepared to do anything, even prevent relief supplies from being delivered and kill Syrian Red Crescent workers, to regain control of Aleppo, where the supplies were headed. The eastern quarters of the city, which the opposition controls, are under massive bombardment.
The message back so far is that Washington will do nothing to respond. Moscow, so outraged by the attack on Syrian forces near Deir Azzour that it called a special UN Security Council meeting Saturday night, has said nothing about the attack on the aid convoy. Secretary Kerry is saying that the ceasefire agreement now widely violated is with Russia, not Syria, so he is holding Moscow, not Damascus, responsible for getting it back on track.
It isn’t going there unless Washington decides to up the ante. What can it do?
The most obvious response would be to destroy (on the ground) the planes that attacked the UN convoy or the helicopters that subsequently dropped dozens of barrel bombs on eastern Aleppo. This would not require putting US aircraft at risk. It can be done with cruise missiles and need not be acknowledged. The President would need to sign a covert action finding, thus avoiding reliance on the existing Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) that applies only to Al Qaeda and its derivatives. The problem with this idea is that the Syrians and Russians may escalate further in response, attacking non-extremist opposition forces and possibly even US special forces on the ground inside Syria.
On the diplomatic side, the US should be calling for a meeting of the UN Security Council to underline that this incident is at least as bad (in fact far worse, since it was an intentional attack on unarmed civilians with authorization to do what they were doing) as what happened at Deir Azzour. Just asking Moscow to get Damascus back into line with the ceasefire is clearly a non-starter. Quick passage and signature of additional sanctions (already pending in Congress, but delayed last week at White House request) on the Syrian government would be likely to generate a better response.
The International Syria Support Group met this morning in New York and may meet again this week. But it is hard to see how that group can do much more than encourage Syria and Russia to renew the ceasefire. That would not be an adequate response.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
New nadir
The extraordinary exchange of charges and countercharges between US UN Ambassador Samantha Power and Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin Saturday night put in doubt both the wisdom and practicality of implementing the still unpublished agreement their two foreign ministers have reached on cooperating against extremist forces in Syria.
Visibly angry Power denounced the Russians for calling an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to protest an apparent US mistake while having continually ignored Syrian military and Russian air force attacks on schools, hospitals, and civilians:
A calmer Churkin suggested that the US action was intentional and intended to protect the Islamic State:
Churkin ignored the US CentCom statement, which said that the strike in question was informed to the Russians in advance. Power and Churkin each walked out of the Security Council while the other was speaking.
In the meanwhile, humanitarian aid deliveries from Turkey to Aleppo appear not to have begun, because of Syrian government refusal to issue the necessary permits.
All this bodes ill for the latest effort to restore the ceasefire in Syria and start coordinated US/Russian attacks on extremists. No doubt Secretary Kerry–who has said he has no alternatives–will try at the UN this week to revive the ceasefire he negotiated so tenaciously, but I see little indication it will work for more than a short period. The Russians and Syrian government are already back to indiscriminate (or maybe it is discriminate?) bombing of civilians, including with anti-personnel weapons.
There have been many low points in Syria during the past 5.5 years, but we may have reached a new nadir.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Peace picks September 19-23
- Central Asian Fighters in Syria: Classification, Factors, Scale Assessment | Monday, September 19th | 9am – 10.30am | Elliot School of International Affairs | click HERE to register
The war in Syria, like a magnet, pulled radicals from around the world, including Central Asian fighters. There are different figures on the number of Central Asian militants in Syria. Separate research was conducted in Kazakhstan under the leadership of Dr. Yerlan Karin to estimate and organize all the data, as well as determine the main factors of radicalization attracting young people from Central Asia to Syria. The research is comprised of several surveys of former combatants and is the first such study in the region. Yerlan Karin is Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Kazakhstan. Yerlan Karin is a leading expert in Kazakhstan on security and terrorism and is the author of more than 100 publications in Kazakhstan and abroad on issues of terrorism, national and regional security, and history of Kazakhstan.
- Winning the War Against Islamist Terror: A Conversation with Chairman Michael McCaul | Tuesday, September 20th | 4pm – 5pm| American Enterprise Institute | click HERE to register |
Fifteen years ago on September 11, Americans experienced firsthand the grave consequences of Islamist terrorism flourishing abroad. Following recent terror attacks in Paris, San Bernardino, Brussels, Orlando, Nice, Istanbul, and beyond, it has never been more apparent that the US and its allies are in a generational, ideological struggle against a determined enemy and that we are not winning. How can we thwart lone wolf attacks and stop radicalization at home? How can America and its partners prevent power vacuums from turning into terrorist safe havens? Join AEI for a conversation with House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul as he releases a new national counterterrorism strategy outlining how the US can protect the American homeland, take the fight to Islamist extremists abroad, and prevail in this long war. Discussion between Michael McCaul, Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security (R-TX) and Danielle Pletka, AEI.
- Arrested Development: Rethinking Politics in Putin’s Russia | Wednesday, September 21st | 10am – 12pm | The National Press Club | click HERE to register |
The Center on Global Interests is pleased to invite you to a discussion on Russia’s political development with members of the Russia Political Insight Project, an international research collaboration that seeks to deepen the understanding of Russia’s current domestic political landscape. Panelists will present the results of their forthcoming book, Arrested Development: Rethinking Politics in Putin’s Russia, scheduled for release in 2017. The book explores the role of the Russian security forces, media, regional elites, public opinion, and other politically relevant actors in the making of domestic policy. Confirmed speakers include Andrei Soldatov, Maria Lipman, Nikolay Petrov, Kirill Rogov, and Daniel Treisman. Maria Lipman is an Editor-in-Chief of Counterpoint journal, published by the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, George Washington University. Nikolay Petrov is a professor and head of the Laboratory of Methodology of Regional Development Evaluation at the Higher School of Economics, Moscow. He also heads the Center for Political-Geographic Research, and is a columnist for the information agency RBC (RosBusinessConsulting). Kirill Rogov is a well-known Russian journalist, a regular columnist for the publications Vedomosti, Forbes-Russia, and Novaya Gazeta. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and a member of the supervisory board of the Liberal Mission Foundation (Moscow). Andrei Soldatov is an investigative journalist and editor of Agentura.ru, an information hub on intelligence agencies. Daniel Treisman is a professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
- Islam and Politics in the Age of ISIS: A Smarter Strategy for Countering Violent Extremism | Wednesday, September 21st | 12pm – 1.30pm | Atlantic Council |click HERE to register |
In recent decades, Muslims have been debating political and social aspects of their religious teachings in new ways. The religious debates are connected to and sometimes stem in considerable part from underlying political and social trends – demographic shifts, rising education, unaccountable and authoritarian governance, stuttering economic and governmental performance, and corruption. They cannot, however, be wholly reduced to those trends. Religion is not an isolated field, but neither is it simply a mask for other struggles; the terms and outcomes of religious debates matter in their own right. Please join us for a conversation with the authors of the newly published Middle East Strategy Task Force (MEST) Working Group on Religion, Identity, and Countering Violent Extremism report to discuss these issues and more. Geneive Abdo is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. Nathan J. Brown is a professor of political science and international affairs and the director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at the George Washington University as well as a nonresident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Frederic C. Hof is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.
- Russia and the Middle East | Wednesday, September 21st | 6pm – 7.15pm |Elliot School of International Affairs | click HERE to register
Ambassador Thomas Pickering joins MEPF to discuss Russia and the Middle East. Drawing on his past experiences as the Ambassador to the Russian Federation and his diplomatic career in the Middle East, Ambassador Pickering discusses Russia’s political interests in the turbulent conflicts of the region. What is the historical context for Russia’s current role in the Middle East? How has Russia’s increased involvement affected its relationships with Middle East power players? Will Russia be a hindrance or a help in achieving lasting solutions to current conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and beyond?
RSS - Posts
