The Sham Syrian Peace Conference
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_sham_syrian_peace_conference_2015110
9/
Posted on Nov 9, 2015
By Gareth Porter / Middle East Eye
From left, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, U.N. Special Envoy
for Syria Staffan de Mistura and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at a
media briefing in Vienna in late October. (Ronald Zak / AP)
This piece first appeared at Middle East Eye.
I have always been enthusiastic in my support for peace negotiations, which
have been neglected all too often in internal and international conflicts.
But it is clear that the international conference on Syria that held its
first meeting in Vienna on October 30 is a sham conference that is not
capable of delivering any peace negotiations, and that the Obama
administration knew that perfectly well from the start.
The administration was touting the fact that Iran was invited to participate
in the conference, unlike the previous United Nations-sponsored gathering on
Syria in January and February 2014. That unfortunate conference had excluded
Iran at the insistence of the United States and its Sunni allies, even
though several states without the slightest capacity to contribute anything
to a peace settlement - as well as the Vatican - were among the 40
non-Syrian invited participants.
Iran's participation in the Vienna conference represents a positive step.
Nevertheless, the conference was marked by an even more fundamental
absurdity: none of the Syrian parties to the war were invited. The 2014
talks at least had representatives of the Assad regime and some of the armed
opposition. The obvious implication of that decision is that the external
patrons of the Syrian parties - especially Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia -
are expected to move toward the outline of a settlement and then use their
clout with the clients to force the acceptance of the deal.
The Vietnam model
The idea of leaping over the Syrian parties to the conflict by having an
outside power negotiate a peace agreement on behalf of it clients is
perfectly logical in the abstract. The classic case of such an arrangement
is the US negotiation of the Paris Agreement with the North Vietnamese in
January 1973 to end the US war in Vietnam. The US-backed Thieu regime's
total dependence on US assistance and the weight of the US military in
Vietnam ensured Thieu's forced acceptance of the arrangement.
But it should also be noted that arrangement did not end the war. The Thieu
regime was unwilling to abide by either a ceasefire or a political
settlement, and the war continued for two more years before a major North
Vietnamese offensive ended it in 1975.
Even more important in regard to the applicability of the model to the
Syrian War is the stark difference between the US interest in negotiating
over the head of its Vietnamese client and the Iranian and Russian interests
in regard to the Syrian government. The United States was negotiating to get
out of a war of choice that it started, like Iraq, in the mistaken belief
that its dominant power guaranteed control of the situation and in which it
was forced to end by domestic political pressure. Iran, on the other hand,
is fighting a war in Syria that it regards a vital to its security. And
Russia's political and security interests in Syria may be less clear-cut,
but it also has no incentive to agree to a settlement that would risk a
victory for terrorism in Syria.
Eclipse of the 'moderate' opposition
The prospect of delivering the anti-Assad forces in a settlement is even
bleaker. If the US-supported opposition forces facing the Syrian regime and
its foreign allies had enough power to threaten the regime it might be an
objective basis for peace negotiations. The Obama administration has tried
to create the impression that the "moderate" forces - meaning those that are
willing to work with the United States - are the primary military opposition
to the Assad regime. In reality, however, those "moderate" forces have
either been absorbed by or have become allied with the jihadists of the
al-Nusra Front and its allies.
That dramatic shift in the nature of the armed opposition to Assad was first
apparent in September 2013. That was when the three major "moderate"
Islamist brigades unexpectedly joined with the allies of al-Nusra Front in
opposition to the Syrian National Coalition, which had been formed in Doha
in November 2012 under pressure from the United States and its Gulf allies.
The shift toward jihadist domination of the war against the Assad regime
accelerated between November 2014 and March 2015 when the Syrian
Revolutionaries Front and the Harakat al-Hazm groups, the two main rebel
groups which had been getting weapons from the CIA or the Saudis, were
attacked and mostly absorbed by al-Nusra Front.
That shift has obvious implications for the possibility of a negotiated
settlement. At United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's Geneva II conference
in January 2014, the only opposition groups at the table were those
represented by the US-supported Syrian National Coalition, which no one took
seriously as representing any military threat to the regime. Missing from
the conference were the self-styled Islamic State and the al-Qaeda franchise
in Syria, al-Nusra Front and its allies, which did represent such a threat.
Nusra's hostility to talks
But neither the Islamic State nor the Nusra-Front-led Islamists were
interested in the slightest in a peace conference. The military head of the
Islamic Front, which is dominated by a close ally of al-Nusra, Ahrar
al-Sham, declared that he would consider the participation by any rebel
troop in the peace talks as "treason".
What the Obama administration has said it wants to see emerge from the
Vienna conference is a "road map" for a transition in power. The
administration has made it clear, moreover, that it wishes to preserve the
institutions of the Syrian state, including the Syrian military structure.
But both Islamic State and the al-Qaeda-led coalition are sectarian Sunni
extremist organisations who have not hidden their intention to replace the
Assad regime with an Islamic state that has no vestiges of the existing
state apparatus.
The Assad regime obviously has no incentive, therefore, to even hint at any
flexibility on the demand for Assad's departure from Syria, when it knows
there is no possibility of any ceasefire or settlement with Islamic State
and al-Nusra Front. Similarly, neither the Russians nor the Iranians are
likely to force Assad's hand on the issue merely to negotiate with the
weakest element in the armed opposition.
US false narrative on Syria
The Obama administration's policymakers nevertheless appear determined not
to allow unpleasant realities to interfere with its propaganda line on
Syria, which is that it is up to Russia and Iran to take care of the problem
by somehow wringing concessions from the Assad regime. Secretary of State
John Kerry suggested in an interview with Kazak TV channel a few days after
the Vienna conference had convened that "the way to end the war is to ask Mr
Assad to help with a transition into a new government". Russia failed to do
so, and instead "is there to simply support the Assad regime," Kerry said,
adding that "the opposition will not stop fighting Assad".
It is doubtful that Kerry mistakes such a patently propagandistic position
for the much more intractable Syrian political-military realities. But it is
not politically convenient to acknowledge those realities. That would
invite unwanted questions about the administration's decision in 2011 to
align its policy with the Syria hawks in Riyadh, Doha and Istanbul who were
so bent on regime change in Syria that they were not only indifferent to the
jihadist buildup in Syria but saw it as a useful tool for getting rid of
Assad.
Now the price of Obama's fateful political-diplomatic strategy is a sham
peace conference that misleads the rest of the world about the lack of any
realistic solution to the war.
Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and winner of the
2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. He is the author of the newly published
Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.
http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/
The Sham Syrian Peace Conference
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_sham_syrian_peace_conference_2015110
9/
Posted on Nov 9, 2015
By Gareth Porter / Middle East Eye
From left, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, U.N. Special Envoy for
Syria Staffan de Mistura and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at a media
briefing in Vienna in late October. (Ronald Zak / AP)
This piece first appeared at Middle East Eye.
I have always been enthusiastic in my support for peace negotiations, which
have been neglected all too often in internal and international conflicts.
But it is clear that the international conference on Syria that held its
first meeting in Vienna on October 30 is a sham conference that is not
capable of delivering any peace negotiations, and that the Obama
administration knew that perfectly well from the start.
The administration was touting the fact that Iran was invited to participate
in the conference, unlike the previous United Nations-sponsored gathering on
Syria in January and February 2014. That unfortunate conference had excluded
Iran at the insistence of the United States and its Sunni allies, even
though several states without the slightest capacity to contribute anything
to a peace settlement - as well as the Vatican - were among the 40
non-Syrian invited participants.
Iran's participation in the Vienna conference represents a positive step.
Nevertheless, the conference was marked by an even more fundamental
absurdity: none of the Syrian parties to the war were invited. The 2014
talks at least had representatives of the Assad regime and some of the armed
opposition. The obvious implication of that decision is that the external
patrons of the Syrian parties - especially Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia -
are expected to move toward the outline of a settlement and then use their
clout with the clients to force the acceptance of the deal.
The Vietnam model
The idea of leaping over the Syrian parties to the conflict by having an
outside power negotiate a peace agreement on behalf of it clients is
perfectly logical in the abstract. The classic case of such an arrangement
is the US negotiation of the Paris Agreement with the North Vietnamese in
January 1973 to end the US war in Vietnam. The US-backed Thieu regime's
total dependence on US assistance and the weight of the US military in
Vietnam ensured Thieu's forced acceptance of the arrangement.
But it should also be noted that arrangement did not end the war. The Thieu
regime was unwilling to abide by either a ceasefire or a political
settlement, and the war continued for two more years before a major North
Vietnamese offensive ended it in 1975.
Even more important in regard to the applicability of the model to the
Syrian War is the stark difference between the US interest in negotiating
over the head of its Vietnamese client and the Iranian and Russian interests
in regard to the Syrian government. The United States was negotiating to get
out of a war of choice that it started, like Iraq, in the mistaken belief
that its dominant power guaranteed control of the situation and in which it
was forced to end by domestic political pressure. Iran, on the other hand,
is fighting a war in Syria that it regards a vital to its security. And
Russia's political and security interests in Syria may be less clear-cut,
but it also has no incentive to agree to a settlement that would risk a
victory for terrorism in Syria.
Eclipse of the 'moderate' opposition
The prospect of delivering the anti-Assad forces in a settlement is even
bleaker. If the US-supported opposition forces facing the Syrian regime and
its foreign allies had enough power to threaten the regime it might be an
objective basis for peace negotiations. The Obama administration has tried
to create the impression that the "moderate" forces - meaning those that are
willing to work with the United States - are the primary military opposition
to the Assad regime. In reality, however, those "moderate" forces have
either been absorbed by or have become allied with the jihadists of the
al-Nusra Front and its allies.
That dramatic shift in the nature of the armed opposition to Assad was first
apparent in September 2013. That was when the three major "moderate"
Islamist brigades unexpectedly joined with the allies of al-Nusra Front in
opposition to the Syrian National Coalition, which had been formed in Doha
in November 2012 under pressure from the United States and its Gulf allies.
The shift toward jihadist domination of the war against the Assad regime
accelerated between November 2014 and March 2015 when the Syrian
Revolutionaries Front and the Harakat al-Hazm groups, the two main rebel
groups which had been getting weapons from the CIA or the Saudis, were
attacked and mostly absorbed by al-Nusra Front.
That shift has obvious implications for the possibility of a negotiated
settlement. At United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's Geneva II conference
in January 2014, the only opposition groups at the table were those
represented by the US-supported Syrian National Coalition, which no one took
seriously as representing any military threat to the regime. Missing from
the conference were the self-styled Islamic State and the al-Qaeda franchise
in Syria, al-Nusra Front and its allies, which did represent such a threat.
Nusra's hostility to talks
But neither the Islamic State nor the Nusra-Front-led Islamists were
interested in the slightest in a peace conference. The military head of the
Islamic Front, which is dominated by a close ally of al-Nusra, Ahrar
al-Sham, declared that he would consider the participation by any rebel
troop in the peace talks as "treason".
What the Obama administration has said it wants to see emerge from the
Vienna conference is a "road map" for a transition in power. The
administration has made it clear, moreover, that it wishes to preserve the
institutions of the Syrian state, including the Syrian military structure.
But both Islamic State and the al-Qaeda-led coalition are sectarian Sunni
extremist organisations who have not hidden their intention to replace the
Assad regime with an Islamic state that has no vestiges of the existing
state apparatus.
The Assad regime obviously has no incentive, therefore, to even hint at any
flexibility on the demand for Assad's departure from Syria, when it knows
there is no possibility of any ceasefire or settlement with Islamic State
and al-Nusra Front. Similarly, neither the Russians nor the Iranians are
likely to force Assad's hand on the issue merely to negotiate with the
weakest element in the armed opposition.
US false narrative on Syria
The Obama administration's policymakers nevertheless appear determined not
to allow unpleasant realities to interfere with its propaganda line on
Syria, which is that it is up to Russia and Iran to take care of the problem
by somehow wringing concessions from the Assad regime. Secretary of State
John Kerry suggested in an interview with Kazak TV channel a few days after
the Vienna conference had convened that "the way to end the war is to ask Mr
Assad to help with a transition into a new government". Russia failed to do
so, and instead "is there to simply support the Assad regime," Kerry said,
adding that "the opposition will not stop fighting Assad".
It is doubtful that Kerry mistakes such a patently propagandistic position
for the much more intractable Syrian political-military realities. But it is
not politically convenient to acknowledge those realities. That would invite
unwanted questions about the administration's decision in 2011 to align its
policy with the Syria hawks in Riyadh, Doha and Istanbul who were so bent on
regime change in Syria that they were not only indifferent to the jihadist
buildup in Syria but saw it as a useful tool for getting rid of Assad.
Now the price of Obama's fateful political-diplomatic strategy is a sham
peace conference that misleads the rest of the world about the lack of any
realistic solution to the war.
Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and winner of the
2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. He is the author of the newly published
Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.
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