Will benefits of Geneva II outweigh its costs?

Yesterday’s Friends of Syria Statement from the UK chair tries to clarify the attitudes of leading supporters of the Syrian opposition in light of the Islamic Front’s recent moves to claim exclusive leadership of the military effort.  This threatens to leave out in the cold both the Supreme Military Council, a CIA-backed funnel for support to armed moderates, and its political leadership, in what is now being called the National Coalition.

The overriding concern of the Friends of Syria is who will be at the table for the January 22 co-sponsored Geneva II conference on the conflict and whether they will be able to speak authoritatively for the armed opposition.  Any hope of success requires that the Islamic Front, or at least part of it, join the National Coalition at the negotiating table.  The statement reiterates the opposition’s most important demand, on which both Islamists and secularists are agreed:

We reaffirmed that the aim of Geneva II was to implement a negotiated solution on the basis of the Geneva communiqué, by establishing a Transitional Governing Body with full executive powers agreed by mutual consent. This is the only way to end the conflict. Assad will have no role in Syria, as his regime is the main source of terror and extremism in Syria.

But the Friends of Syria rightly leave the door open to Islamist participation in Geneva, so long as they operate under the political authority of the National Coalition:

The only way to secure our objectives is for opposition military groups to respect democratic and pluralistic values, and operate under the political authority of the National Coalition. As long as that remains the case, the London 11 parties agree to intensify their political and practical support to the National Coalition / Supreme Military Council ahead of and during the Geneva II process.

But Islamist respect for the political authority of the National Coalition is unlikely.  As Deborah Amos explained on NPR this morning (I’ll put up a link when I find it), the center of gravity of the armed opposition has moved to the Islamists, who have seized US supplies intended for the Coalition.  The US is negotiating with the Islamists, to whom I hope it will offer support, provided the Islamists accept those “democratic and pluralistic values.”  But it is unlikely that they will accept real political leadership of the National Coalition.

As things stand right now, anyone who goes to Geneva II on behalf of the opposition is in both political and physical peril.  This will be even more the case if an agreement is reached with the regime that falls short of removing Assad from power, as it must given regime military gains in recent months and fragmenting of the opposition forces.

To put it another way, the negotiation within the opposition is in many ways more important than the negotiation with the regime.  Some elements of the political opposition might reach an accommodation with the regime, but that won’t stop the fighting unless they have full backing from the main military forces inside Syria.

What the Americans and other Friends of Syria have to consider is whether a Geneva II meeting on January 22 will advance their cause, or instead cause more harm than good to an already weakened opposition.  The Americans may feel Geneva II is necessary because they proposed it.  But Washington needs to consider whether the benefits will outweigh the costs.