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Kerry’s hint

Secretary Kerry’s few words Sunday about negotiating with Bashar al Assad have roused the commentariat to hyperbole:  Aaron David Miller says

…if…the U.S. comes to terms with Mr. Assad, then Washington will have achieved a horrible trifecta: legitimizing a mass murderer, feeding ISIS propaganda, and alienating its own Sunni allies.

That is eminently quotable. But the sentence that precedes it is more to the point:

If Russia and Iran would support a transition in Syria that forces Mr. Assad, his family, and the regime’s mafia from power; that includes Alawites, Sunnis, Christians, and Kurds in the new Syria; and that doesn’t open the door to further ISIS gains, the outcome could be fine.

The simple fact is that Washington has long been prepared to negotiate with Assad or his regime. It did so at the Geneva 2 talks in early 2014. I imagine it would do so again if it can move Assad aside or out. Kerry clearly intended this when he said yesterday:

To get the Assad regime to negotiate, we’re going to have to make it clear to him that there is a determination by everybody to seek that political outcome and change his calculation about negotiating.

This reminds me of Kerry’s apparently offhanded remark about Syria’s chemical weapons, which led to a diplomatic rather than a military initiative to remove them. That effort was not 100% successful, but it was easily over 75% successful. Kerry also went on to say:

That’s under way right now. And I am convinced that, with the efforts of our allies and others, there will be increased pressure on Assad.

This could be wishful thinking. But if he is hinting that Tehran and Moscow (those are presumably the “others”) are prepared to increase pressure on Bashar, we might well be within range of a 75% breakthrough along the lines of the one Miller described as acceptable.

What might that look like? It would have to involve the central premise of the 2012 Geneva communique: a transitional governing body with full executive powers. It is difficult for me to picture Assad staying in the country while that happens. His life would be in danger. He might remain nominally as president, but take a long vacation in Moscow or Tehran, with his family. Or perhaps in Latakia. Someone else would need to be put in charge, either as acting president or prime minister.

Who might that be? The current vice presidents of Syria are Farouk al Sharaa (despite frequent rumors of his defection) and Najah al Attar. Both are Sunni Muslims and loyalists to Assad, who appointed them after long service in the Ba’ath party and his government. Neither would be much welcomed among the externally based Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC), but a constitutional succession (like the one in Yemen) would presumably preserve more of the Syrian state and its capabilities to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) than a violent overthrow of the regime.

More likely perhaps would be a military takeover, something that has happened frequently in Syria’s past. This would have to exclude Bashar’s younger brother Maher, who was a major protagonist of the crackdown on peaceful protesters and the subsequent civil war. He and the rest of the Assad family would have to join the President in exile, or decide to fight. That would make the current civil war in Syria deteriorate further, as the regular army (or a large part of it) supports the military takeover while the Alawite militias try to protect both the remaining Assad family members and the Alawite population, which is split between western Syria and Damascus.

That will not be the only complication. There will be nothing easy about a political settlement of the Syrian conflicts if Kerry is correct and one is in the offing. ISIS, Jabhat al Nusra and perhaps also some Kurdish forces will continue to fight whatever transition arrangement is made. Iran and Russia will continue to try to preserve their assets in Syria.

Tehran will be particularly keen on its Revolutionary Guard forces playing a major role, in order to guarantee continuation of Syria’s role as a bridge to Hizbollah, whose forces are also engaged there. Moscow will want its port access and strong military supply relationship with Syria preserved, but its main preoccupation will be to portray whatever settlement is reached as a triumph for Russian diplomacy and a defeat for the US, which it managed reasonably well in the case of chemical weapons.

Secretary Kerry may be hinting at something better than preservation of Assad in power, but implementation won’t be easy.