Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Failure in Syria corrodes Kerry’s legacy
WASHINGTON — John Kerry was late to his own party.
Staffers, journalists and other officials were gathered in the ornate Benjamin Franklin salon at the State Department on Dec. 14 for early Christmas festivities. But the secretary of state was on the telephone to various world leaders, trying to find out about a major diplomatic meeting — from which the United States had been excluded.
The meeting, which sought to broker a resolution to the devastating Syrian conflict, took place six days later in Moscow and involved the foreign ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey.
They engineered the evacuation of thousands of civilians from Aleppo and the fall of the besieged city to forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad. The White House had called for Assad’s ouster, but his hold on power is now all but assured — thanks in large part to Russia.
The Obama administration — specifically Kerry — had led repeated efforts to craft a diplomatic solution to ease or end the bloodshed in Syria. In the end, he was left out of the first successful cease-fire for Aleppo and a major humanitarian rescue operation.
As he prepares to leave office, Kerry, 73, confronts a mixed legacy.
His inability to halt the carnage in Syria, or to block Russia’s growing influence, ranks as the most serious blot on his record. But he also got nowhere trying to end the Israeli-Palestinian standoff, or to stop Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally, from bombing civilians in Yemen.
Kerry’s greatest success was the historic accord to curtail Iran’s nuclear development program and a landmark climate change treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming.
The Iran deal was forged in marathon negotiations in 2014 and 2015. Kerry formed close relationships with his Russian and Iranian counterparts in European hotel salons and government palaces, and engaged in a diplomatic dance of cajolement and brinkmanship.
Kerry insists the deal has made the world safer. Whether it survives intact is another question: Donald Trump has variously vowed to junk or renegotiate the deal after he enters the White House next month.
Trump also has pledged opposition to the Paris Agreement on climate change, another diplomatic priority for the Obama administration.
Kerry says he is undaunted by the challenges he has faced.
“I’m a believer in diplomacy; that’s the job I do,” Kerry told reporters during a recent trip to Colombia for the signing of a peace accord ending the hemisphere’s longest civil war. “And there are plenty of people around who could start conflicts. I try to prevent them or end them.”
Kerry had hoped bringing peace to Israel and the Palestinian territories would be his signature foreign policy achievement.
In early 2013, Kerry engaged in relentless shuttle diplomacy to the Middle East to meet separately with Israeli and Palestinian officials, attempting to coax them back into negotiations. By late summer, he had revived direct Israeli-Palestinian talks for the first time in five years.
But the talks soon broke down. The Israelis were angry over what they called Palestinian incitements to violence, and the Palestinians were angry over continued construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land claimed by the Palestinians.
Kerry never could restart the peace process. Israel’s refusal to curtail what the White House called “corrosive” settlement expansion ultimately led last week to a U.N. Security Council condemnation in which the U.S. took the rare step of abstaining and permitting the resolution to go through.
But Syria proved the greatest calamity on Kerry’s watch.
His inability to craft a lasting cease-fire or to start peace talks grew increasingly painful against the daily tragedy of bloodied children and dead families.
President Barack Obama was reluctant to enter the multi-sided conflict beyond attacking Islamic State. Russian President Vladimir Putin saw an opening and entered the war in 2015 to support Assad.
Kerry privately complained that Obama would not allow greater U.S. military support for rebels fighting the Assad government.
In 2013, he had all but applauded when it appeared Obama was going to order air strikes to punish Assad’s forces for crossing a “red line” by using chemical weapons — and then was surprised when Obama pulled back. Syria ultimately surrendered the toxic agents and production materials for destruction at sea.
Over the last 15 months, Kerry watched helplessly as Moscow took a direct military role in Syria, bombarded the historic city of Aleppo and U.S.-backed rebel groups, and cemented the resurgence of Putin’s Russia as a rising power.
“Where’s the congressional vote to go do something?” Kerry asked journalists.
That was in September. By December, Aleppo had fallen to Assad and the Russians. And Kerry was stuck on the sidelines.