Hope fades

The Syria peace talks, never substantial, are evaporating. The chief negotiator for the opposition has quit. The Russians and the Syrian government continue to bombard pretty much whomever they like in dozens of raids every day, though Administration officials assure me that the Russians insist on some restraint. That wasn’t apparent yesterday in a bombing near Idlib’s main hospital.* Sieges have not been lifted, prisoners have not been exchanged and most humanitarian supplies are still blocked.

On the main issue in the talks–the formation of a transitional governing body with full executive authority (TGBFEA)–there is no progress reported, despite a looming deadline of August 1 for beginning the transition. The Syrian government and the Russians continue to insist that Bashar al Assad preside over the TGBFEA. The opposition rejects that proposition, but its deteriorating military situation gives it little leverage in the negotiation. The Americans have been unable to convince the opposition to yield. Even if some moderates do, they will be unlikely to be able to deliver the armed groups–moderates as well as extremists–to a political solution that leaves Bashar al Assad in place.

The question of Assad is a secondary one for the Americans, who are mainly concerned to pursue the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS). Pentagon equipped, trained and advised Syrian Democratic Forces (mainly Kurdish but partly Arab) are making progress in investing Raqqa, ISIS’s more or less capital. But ISIS has responded with attacks farther west aimed at cutting off a main supply route from Turkey to relatively moderate forces in Aleppo and farther north. If Kurdish forces prove necessary to block this move, Ankara will have apoplexy, since that could give them control of the last remaining portion of the Syrian/Turkish border that they do not already own. ISIS knows how to drive a wedge between the supposed Coalition partners fighting against it.

Things are going a bit better in Iraq, where more or less government-controlled forces have surrounded Fallujah, which ISIS has been using to launch suicide attacks in Baghdad, and are beginning the effort to liberate it. Kurdish forces have also moved towards Mosul, though any effort to liberate what was once Iraq’s second-largest city still seems far off.

Sectarian strife increasingly threatens military success in Iraq, with Iranian-backed Shia militias prominent in investing Fallujah and apparently determined to play a role in its liberation, despite the express wishes of Prime Minister Abadi. He remains under political pressure in Baghdad but has been unable to assemble the parliamentary quorum and majority needed to approve a new, more technocratic government and much-needed anti-corruption reforms.

With the Syrian regime refusing to allow humanitarian convoys into besieged cities, talk has grown of airdropping aid. That’s an expensive and ineffective proposition that should be used only in limited and extreme circumstances. It is no substitute for the truckloads required in major population centers. Nor will it do anything to end the war. Bashar al Assad is happy to tie up the international community in interminable discussions of humanitarian access because it helps him to avoid the search for a political solution and the inevitable end to his rule it would entail.

Hope for the peace talks is fading. Syria is headed for more war. It is at moments like these that sometimes someone does something fundamental to alter the equation. What that might be, and who will act, isn’t at all clear to me.

*I originally said “of Idlib’s main hospital.” Later reporting suggests that was inaccurate.