Russia Says Syria Bombing to Continue as U.S. Truce Talks Held | How Russia and Iran took advantage of Syrian peace talks to choke Aleppo | Up to 5,000 Isil-trained jihadists could be at large in Europe
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Russia and the U.S. held “intensive” talks in Geneva on implementing a limited truce in Syria, with the Russian side insisting it won’t stop a bombing campaign that’s bolstering President Bashar al-Assad.
The former Cold War foes held consultations on a “joint approach” to the cease-fire ahead of a planned wider meeting of major powers that they will chair, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. That gathering may not take place as scheduled on Friday because of the ongoing U.S.-Russia talks, she said by phone in Moscow. An American diplomat didn’t contradict the Russian account of the discussions.
A week ago, Russia, the U.S. and other countries agreed to seek a partial cessation of hostilities in Syria to begin within seven days, as well as humanitarian aid deliveries to besieged areas that are already underway. A Syrian government offensive backed by Russian airstrikes has overshadowed the diplomacy and brought the recapture of rebel-held Aleppo, the most populous city and once the thriving commercial hub of Syria, within reach.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said his country wants to coordinate its air campaign with the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.
“To combat terrorism, we need not to stop the airstrikes but to have closer coordination in the air and on the ground,” he told state news agency RIA Novosti’s Sputnik foreign-language service. Bogdanov described the talks with the U.S. as “intensive.”
Looming Disaster
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the weekend that the Syrian peace initiative agreed on Feb. 12 could collapse if the U.S. continues to refuse to coordinate militarily with Russia in Syria. Republican U.S. Senator John McCain criticized the Obama administration for bowing to Russian pressure, warning against “legitimizing their actions in Syria,” which he characterized as “a disaster in the making.”
Meanwhile, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin called on Assad to abandon any idea of a comprehensive military victory in Syria. If Syria follows the Kremlin’s leadership in resolving the five-year war, there’s a chance for a “decent” outcome, according to a transcript of a Kommersant newspaper interview with Churkin posted on the mission’s website.
“If they believe that no cease-fire is necessary and they have to fight to the end, this conflict will go for a very, very long time,” Churkin said. “Whatever the capabilities of the Syrian army, it’s thanks to the effective Russian air campaign that they managed to drive off their opponents from Damascus.”
Russia needs to show its international partners it is serious about implementing the agreement to halt the fighting in Syria, but it won’t stop its air campaign until Aleppo is captured, said Alexei Malashenko, a Middle East expert at the Moscow Carnegie Center. “The bombing will continue, and Assad and Putin are completely in agreement over that,” Malashenko said by phone.
Territorial Ambition
In recent interviews Assad has declared his intention to retake control of the whole country and said a durable cease-fire would require “in the first place preventing terrorists from strengthening their positions.”
The cessation of hostilities is due to apply to all armed groups except for Islamic State, the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and any other United Nations-listed terrorist organizations. The U.S. and its allies, some of whom have been arming foes of Assad including radical Islamists, accuse Russia of targeting moderate opposition groups rather than Islamic State.
Assad’s army could soon take Aleppo, said Churkin. Its advances there come after Syrian forces ended a three-year siege of two Shiite Muslim villages in northern Aleppo province earlier this month, cutting the opposition’s main supply route from Turkey.
The fighting has sent tens of thousands of civilians fleeing to the Turkish border, and have threatened to escalate the conflict, with Turkey and Saudi Arabia saying they could send troops into Syria as part of any U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition.
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In the coming days and weeks many people will weep for the fate of Aleppo. Many of these people will also continue to support the nuclear deal, which has facilitated this US-Iran détente and supplied Iran the resources to make war. They will still consider it a triumph of diplomacy over military action – and never be called to account for the obvious contradiction.
The Geneva III peace process is the most immediate cause for this latest offensive against Aleppo, led on the ground by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxies, as well as Russian airstrikes. The regime and Russia have used it as a cover to gain ground. The US took the process seriously so sought to de-escalate, taking steps to weaken its own side. This included restricting the rebels' access to anti-tank missiles.
Russia, on the other hand, enabled the IRGC-run forces that control the Bashar al-Assad regime's security sector to cut the rebels' final Aleppo supply line into Turkey and move to impose a starvation-siege on the city like the ones they have imposed on forty-nine other areas in Syria. The regime coalition can then either bring the city to its knees and complete the reconquest, or quarantine the rebels in the city, freeing up resources to deploy against rebels on other fronts.
Meanwhile, at the peace talks the US increasingly acted to enforce the regime's edicts on the opposition. It was not difficult to see that this would happen. Anyone could see, all the way back in December, the only party on whom pressure could and would be exerted to keep Geneva III going was the moderate rebels. Russia and Iran were not going to pressure Assad and nobody can pressure Isis or Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria). So for the US the choice was simple: let a process it had invested political capital in fail and boost the rebellion to a point where it could apply enough pressure on the regime to eventually force negotiations on meaningful terms, or pressure the rebellion into accepting the regime's terms in order to preserve the process.
This Alice in Wonderland predicament was put on hold earlier this month, until 25 February, because the rebel representatives refused to engage with the regime and its backers while the bombardment and starvation of civilian areas continued in violation of a UN Security Council resolution, 2254, that Russia itself voted for. Amazingly, on that issue, too, the United States adopted the Russian position, arguing that allowing humanitarian access and ceasing war crimes was a precondition—ie it was something that should be up for negotiation.
At first glance, then, it can seem odd that Russia ostensibly agreed to a ceasefire on the morning of 12 February. But on closer examination this is less confusing.
A week in Aleppo - witnessing the fierce battle for Syria's largest city
A week in Aleppo - witnessing the fierce battle for Syria's largest city
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A woman walks through rubble from a building destroyed by shelling from forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in downtown AleppoREUTERS/Goran Tomasevic2/6
A Free Syrian Army fighter gestures during a fight with forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in downtown AleppoREUTERS/Goran Tomasevic3/6
Members of the Free Syrian Army ride on pick-up trucks in Aleppo's district of SalheddineREUTERS/Abdel Razzak al-Halabi4/6
The body of a civilian, whom activists say was killed by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, is seen in front of the wreckage of a bus in Aleppo's district of SalheddineREUTERS/Abdel Razzak al-Halabi5/6
A Free Syrian Army fighter is wounded during a fight with forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in downtown AleppoREUTERS/Goran Tomasevic6/6
A man carries belongings from his shop destroyed by shelling from forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in downtown AleppoREUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
First, a massive loophole is included so that Russian operations against terrorist groups—Isis and al-Nusra—do not have to cease. Russia defines all armed opposition in Syria as terrorist and regularly mislabels them either as Islamic State or al-Nusra to justify their strikes. That Russia apparently got the US to define a “couple of other groups” as terrorist is merely a bonus.
Second, the ceasefire was not supposed to start for a week, which meant a week of internationally-recognised time for the Russia-Iran-Assad coalition to advance on Aleppo. It also meant that once this ceasefire began, the pro-Assad coalition would be able to claim international legitimacy for the new battle lines it had imposed in Aleppo, and when the rebellion refused to be bound by this aggression, Russia could blame the rebels for violating the ceasefire.
Thus, the ceasefire is a fantasy. The surprise was to have Assad say so, in public, quite so quickly. Speaking to AFP, Assad announced—a mere twelve hours after the ceasefire was agreed—that his intention was to reconquer the whole country. Given that the premise of the ceasefire is as part of Geneva III, the essential element of which is a political transition that gets Assad out so a government can be formed in Damascus that works with the rebels fighting Isis rather than blitzing them, this was as good as a flat repudiation not only of the ceasefire but the overarching peace talks.
To further complicate matters, over the last ten days, both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have said they will deploy troops in Syria as part of the US-led effort against Isis. This was undoubtedly an answer to President Obama's call in December for US allies to do more, and also a political move to push the US into greater intervention in Syria. It now seems that some kind of Gulf deployment really will take place in Syria.
Officially, however, those Saudi troops would be aimed at Isis in Raqqa. The wildcard with regards to Aleppo is Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is politically invested in the Syrian rebellion and the downfall of Assad. Turkey also hosts 3 million Syrian refugees, which has already caused internal turbulence. Fifty-thousand people have fled Aleppo in just the last few days to avoid being trapped by the regime coalition's siege and hundreds of thousands more are likely to follow after a Russian-enabled attack on the city of Aleppo begins. This is not something Turkey can be indifferent to.
Russia claimed on 4 February that Turkey was preparing to invade Syria, and the Turkish Prime Minister has now signalled that Ankara is considering moving into Syria directly to at least re-open the corridor that Russia helped the pro-regime forces close earlier this month. An immediate problem here for Erdogan would be getting his own military to obey his orders.
The Russian response was to declare that any foreign troops in Syria—presumably except their own and Iran's—would cause a world war. There is indeed some margin of danger of a wider conflagration given that U.S. policy has convinced Moscow it has no red lines in Syria. It is a dangerous position when there is a meaningful tripwire and an adversary doesn't know about it.
Likely, however, whether Turkey intervenes or not in Syria the risk of a major war is minimal. The possibility of the pro-Assad coalition re-establishing regime control over the whole country is also unlikely. What is possible is an Assadist political victory.
If the pro-regime coalition is able to retake Aleppo City, either killing or hastening the trend of the mainstream armed opposition leaving the battlefield, so only al-Qaeda and Isis remain as significant opponents, then they will have won. Assad, Iran, and Russia have worked tirelessly to eliminate the moderate opposition so that there will be nobody for the international community to interface with, and Assad's reign will have to be accepted—and perhaps even supported to reconquer the Isis-held areas in the east. An Assadist victory of this kind is all the more imaginable because of the Obama administration's pro-Iran/Assad tilt in Syria, which will then be able to present itself as the practical option of a prescient President.
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We can expect Isil or other terrorist groups to stage an attack in Europe, warns Rob Wainwright, the British head of Europol, the EU's police agency
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February 19, 2016, 7:10 PM (IDT)
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