Secretary of State John Kerry, along with his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, agreed to a cease fire which will allow the delivery of badly needed humanitarian aid to various Syrian cities, and in turn will be followed by a “cessation of hostilities’ within a week, then to a formal cease-fire.
Secretary Kerry followed up by remarking, “The real test is whether all the parties honor those commitments,” this with the Russian foreign minister sitting next to him.
This pronouncement by the Secretary of State could in fact relieve the pressure on the city of Aleppo, which is currently facing withering attacks by Russian air strikes and with foreign militias supporting the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The real unanswered question is ‘how does this agreement change the situation on the ground’? Noah Bonsey, senior Syria analyst for the International Crisis Group, commented in an interview with Zachary Laub, of Council on Foreign Relations, that “The broader effort to negotiate a political transition may continue to founder”, he adds, “because the pro-Assad forces are making progress in their military push.”
Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, President Obama’s and his administration have repeatedly stated that Assad must go, but the president never has communicated how this was to be achieved.
Further complicating matters, and infuriating our allies, was the famous “redline” pronouncement in 2013, that the U.S. would use military action if Syria moved or used chemical weapons. This redline was crossed and the U.S. failed to follow up on its warning, thereby making the Obama administration look weak in the eyes of the world, especially our Middle East allies.
The situation changed dramatically, last September, when Russia entered the Syrian conflict by conducting military operations in its support of the embattled Syrian leader. Moscow’s main objective is to keep its military facilities at Tartus and Latakia open to its military and maintain its influence in Syria and the region.
On Friday, Ambassador James Jeffrey, writing in The Washington Institute, mentioned that during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on December 9, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Gen. Paul Selva, confirmed the notion that the Obama administration has effectively “self-deterred” itself out of a more robust action in the war, including the oft-recommended move of establishing a safe haven in northern Syria. As Selva put it, “We have the military capacity to impose a no-fly zone. The question that we need to ask is, do we have the political and policy backdrop with which to do so?”
The question so far from the administration is no, coupled with the fact that the administration has not articulated a coherent Syrian strategy.
Since September, the Russian-Syrian-Iranian axis has allowed military success to be buffeted, with the United States not taking any military or political moves to counter actions taken by Moscow or Tehran.
The Institute for the Study of War reported on Saturday that the United States faces a geostrategic inflection in Syria that it has not yet fully recognized. The “cessation of hostilities” declared on February 11, 2016, permits Russia and the Assad regime to continue targeting U.S. allies in Aleppo under the pretext that the opposition in the city consists predominantly of al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra.
The agreed upon cease fire dose nothing to solve the situation and actually makes the situation worse by allowing Russia to consolidate its military operations, allows Assad to strengthen his hold on power with the help of foreign fighters allied with Iran.
Bonsey, in his interview mentioned that “the Iranians help with boots on the ground—foreign militias, or Shiite fighters facilitated by Iran. Many of them are Iraqis, and many are Afghan refugees coming from Iran, facilitated by the
To our allies in the regions, especially the Sunni Arabs, who the U.S. needs in its support in defeating ISIS, they view this agreement just like they view the nuclear agreement with Iran – that the Obama administration enthusiastic, almost desperate need to get any agreement no matter what the situation on ground is.
This agreement does nothing to prevent Russian military operations against anti-Assad forces. These are the groups that the U.S. is backing, and they are facing relentless attacks from Assad and his foreign backed militias.
Russia, from the beginning of its military intervention, has stated that it has been attacking ISIS, but all of its military campaign has been against rebel groups opposing Assad.
With this agreement we still have Assad in power, and after five years we still have no strategy of removing Assad from power, something our Sunni Arab allies have been pressing for since 2011.
We still have no strategy to counter Russian aggression inside Syria to prevent them from attacking anti-Assad forces, these are the very rebel groups we are supporting.
We still have no strategy to counter Iran and its proxy force inside Syria.
We still have no strategy in preventing millions of refugee’s leaving Syria and fleeing to Europe.
Even Michael Ignatieff and Leon Wieseltier, of the Brookings Institute writes, “actually, it is past time. The moral bankruptcy has been long in the making: five years of empty declarations that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go, of halfhearted arming of rebel groups, of allowing the red line on chemical weapons to be crossed and of failing adequately to share Europe’s refugee burden as it buckles under the strain of the consequences of Western inaction”. In the meantime, a quarter-million Syrians have died, 7 million have been displaced and nearly 5 million are refugees. Two million of the refugees are children.
The situation will only get worse not better! This cannot wait until 2017 when the next president takes office.
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