The epitome of resolve

AP has published the Syria cease-fire deal that the US government refused to make public. It is instructive, even though the cessation of hostilities is in tatters as Russian and Syrian government forces have launched major attacks focused on Aleppo.

The deal was more or less as anticipated and described in the press: it entailed an effort to stabilize at least parts of Syria by ending attacks on non-extremist forces, thus permitting them to receive humanitarian assistance. Had this happened as agreed for a week, the US and Russia would have jointly targeted extremist forces (ISIS, Jabhat al Nusra and others) while the Syrian air force would have stood down from attacks in designated areas.

Special provisions would have allowed relief to arrive from Turkey to Aleppo in sealed trucks. Checkpoints on the Castello Road north of Aleppo were to be monitored initially by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and later by the UN. The area near the road was to be demilitarized, with both government and opposition forces pulling back. Syrians were supposed to be allowed to leave Aleppo, including fighters with weapons. At least one other route was to be opened into Aleppo.

The joint Russian/American military action against extremists depended on the delineation of areas controlled by Nusra and opposition groups, starting right away but more “comprehensively” once the joint implementation center responsible for coordinating attacks on extremists was established. The Russians have been claiming that the Americans failed to fulfill their commitment to delineation, which also requires separation of more moderate forces from the extremists.

Why hasn’t it worked?

Some blame the failure on a lack of monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. To be sure, this is a complicated agreement with many moving parts that might have been marginally more successful had there been some sort of third-party monitoring.

But fundamentally it hasn’t worked because the parties haven’t really wanted it to or don’t have the leverage required. The Syrian government has the military advantage around Aleppo and wants to finish off the opposition that has controlled parts of the city for years. The Russians, having doubled down on their support for Bashar al Assad, are in no position to undermine their surrogate. The Americans have not provided sufficient support to the opposition to wean it from the extremists, who provide a good deal of the tooth in fighting against the regime.

Secretary of State Kerry is still trying to revive the cessation of hostilities. Foreign Policy has classified this as the textbook definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. But Kerry isn’t nuts. His problem is President Obama, who thinks there is nothing he can do that will improve the situation.

My Republican colleagues see this as a failure of resolve. I don’t. All American presidents since the fall of the Berlin Wall have resisted interventions. All eventually undertook one or more, against their better judgment at the outset. What distinguishes Obama is that he is more resolved, not less. But he is resolved to avoid the slippery slope to “owning” Syria, whereas his critiques wish he would start down it. This is the epitome of resolve, not its failure. Remember: this is a man with two teenage daughters who has spent almost eight years in the White House without a whiff of scandal.

I believe there are still things the President can consider doing about Syria: expanded sanctions, stand-off attacks on helicopters that drop barrel bombs or Syrian aircraft that violate the cessation of hostilities, an ultimatum to get Hizbollah and other Iranian surrogates out of Syria, non-declared attacks on Syrian government command and control. Without these alternatives, Secretary Kerry will not be able to deliver the negotiated political solution that is his avowed goal.