Elusive prospects for peace in Syria
Neither side seems to see much benefit to negotiations to end the conflict
Officially, U.S. policy is that Syria’s 2-year-old civil war can only be ended through negotiations leading to the departure of President Bashar Assad and the formation of an interim government representing all of the country’s religious and ethnic factions. But since the prospects for that outcome any time soon seem virtually nil, the U.S. may have to settle for a far less palatable alternative: A continuation of the current military stalemate between a deeply divided Syrian opposition and the Assad government that prolongs the fighting even as the death toll, now at more than 100,000, continues to rise.
Given that unofficial reality on the ground, it’s no wonder Secretary of State John Kerry sought to put the best face on the stalled Syrian peace talks last week when he acknowledged that, despite the best efforts of the U.S. and its allies to pursue a diplomatic settlement of the conflict, leaders of Syria’s Western-backed moderate opposition still are not committed to negotiating with the Assad government. The two sides had been scheduled to meet in Geneva next month, but their positions remain so far apart that one or both parties may ultimately decide they have little to lose by skipping the gathering. That would effectively guarantee a bloody continuance of the status quo.
The rebels clearly fear losing popular support if they enter into prolonged negotiations with the Assad regime that don’t go anywhere while thousands of civilians continue to killed by government forces and millions are forced to flee their homes. And they’ve got good reason to worry that’s exactly what would happen: Mr. Assad is already boasting that he isn’t going anywhere and that he is even likely to run in the next presidential election when his current term ends. Since everyone knows Syrian elections are rigged to make it impossible for the government to be defeated at the polls, the rebels would end up looking like willing partners in the continuation of Mr. Assad’s tyranny.
For his part, Mr. Assad clearly thinks he can win on the battlefield now that the threat of U.S. military intervention to punish his use of chemical weapons against civilians is off the table. An American strike inevitably would have had to take out a significant part of the government’s aircraft, communications, air defense systems and conventional weapons stockpiles as well as its chemical weapons stocks, potentially altering the military balance on the ground in the rebels’ favor. Nowthe U.S. can claim it achieved its objective of disarming Syria of its chemical weapons capability without firing a shot or getting more deeply involved in another messy Mideast conflict. Yet Mr. Assad is obviously gambling that even without chemical weapons his forces can prevail.
Russia, which has backed the regime from the beginning, will continue to arm the government with sophisticated weaponry such as missiles and attack helicopters, and Iran continues to send military equipment and Hezbollah troops from Lebanon across the border to prop up Syria’s minority Alawite regime, a branch of Islam closely related to Iran’s Shiite Muslim majority. Mr. Assad does not fear running out of bullets any time soon.
Meanwhile, Syria’s rebel groups are badly divided between pro-Western but poorly armed secular and moderate forces and much better-equipped Islamist extremists who increasingly are threatening to dominate the entire opposition movement. The U.S. is has been trying to strengthen the pro-Western groups, but the military aid it promised them has been slow in coming, and reports suggest that some of them have already thrown in with the extremists rather than face the prospect of confronting the regime with little more than pistols and kitchen knives.
Secretary Kerry confirmed that possibility when he warned that unless progress toward a settlement is achieved soon, the only choice Syrians who seek a secular representative democracy will have is between Mr. Assad and the extremists. Clearly neither of those outcomes serves U.S. interests in the region, but the only other alternative is a continuation of the bloodletting until both sides are exhausted. That could take years and tens of thousands more innocent lives and still leave the region dangerously destabilized. But unless the U.S. can somehow jump start talks that lead to a resolution of the conflict, the perpetual slaughter in what originally began as a series of peaceful protests in 2011 has no chance of ending.