The odious route to peace in Syria

A bit after 34 minutes in this briefing on US Syria sanctions, Faysal Itani asks two important questions of Joel Rayburn, State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary: 1) what conditions would Syria have to fulfill to get relief from sanctions and more normal relations with the US? 2) what do we do if the sanctions cause collapse of the regime?

Joel responds that there are six Trump-approved conditions Assad or any Syrian government would have to meet :

1. Cease sponsorship of terrorism;
2. Severe its military relationship with Iran and Iranian proxies;
3. Cease hostility to regional neighbors;
4. Surrender weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and cease its WMD programs in a sustainable way;
5. Create conditions for refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) to return safely;
6. Hold war criminals accountable, or allow the international community to do so.

Rayburn was at pains to point out that the first four were problems even before 2011. Only the last two stem from the war since then.

On regime collapse, Joel just shifts the responsibility to Syrian President Assad.

Both these answers are problematic.

The six conditions (which somehow become seven when Joel refers to the Caesar Act) are tantamount to regime change in Syria. There is no way Assad would survive numbers 5 and 6, especially as he himself is a prime candidate for war crimes accountability. 1-4 are less obviously connected one-by-one to regime change, but they amount to the same thing. It is a radically different Syria that could agree to meet these conditions.

The trouble is that we are nowhere near getting any of these conditions fulfilled. There is little likelihood that even the strict sanctions now being implemented will get us there any time soon. In the meanwhile, the sanctions will make life harder for many innocent Syrians and give the regime the foreign bogey-man it needs to blame for conditions it itself created. We need to do much more to ease humanitarian relief and remittances into areas the regime does not control and to prevent the regime from targeting UN agency relief, much of which we pay for, to its supporters.

The longer-term question is when can we hope that negotiating relief from sanctions with Assad will get us a worthwhile fraction of the conditions we have set? That’s how sanctions really work: you get something in exchange for relief from them, not in response to imposing them.

The prospect of regime collapse is what limits how long we can wait. It would mean risking revival of the Islamic State and resurgence of Al Qaeda or some 3.0 version of them, with all the harm that implies for US forces in Syria, the neighboring countries, and for Americans elsewhere in the world. It’s a judgment call, but it would be a serious mistake to wait too long. A year–at the outside two–of Caesar sanctions should be enough to tell us whether we have reached the point of diminishing returns.

It is profoundly odious to contemplate talks with Assad, and particularly difficult to do so if it looks as if his regime might be on the verge of collapse. His first priority in such talks would be self-preservation. But that is what we need to contemplate, unless we are willing to invest much more blood, treasure, and weapons in enabling an alternative to Assad that could take over quickly, avoid state collapse, and govern in a way more to our liking. I see no sign whatsoever that Americans–and certainly not Donald Trump–have the stomach for such a state-building commitment in Syria.

Joel and Syria Special Envoy Jim Jeffrey are hoping that Russia will save us from this conundrum. It would be nice if, as they often suggest, Moscow decides Assad is no longer their man. The Russians tell any American who will listen that they are unhappy with him. Some think Moscow could defenestrate Assad and find a more pliable proxy, in order to gain access to World Bank reconstruction funding, but they haven’t done it through a decade of rebellion and war.

A main factor here is money: if Moscow is willing to continue to bail out the Syrian economy, it is hard to imagine Assad crying “uncle.” But if Moscow–which is feeling the pinch of both Covid-19 and low oil prices–decides it is time, then a serious negotiation about Syria’s political future without Assad might begin. The Iranians–also pinched by Covid-19 and low oil prices–are a far less important financial factor.

The problems with relying on Russia to get rid of Assad are many. Moscow’s primary purpose there is to prevent regime change, not cause it. This is both a question of principle and interest, as it protects a fellow autocrat and the Russians’ biggest footprint in the Mediterranean. Moscow enjoys the discomfort Assad causes the West as well as the use of Syrian naval and air force facilities. Putin has taken good advantage of the situation in Syria to drive a wedge into NATO and pry Turkey loose, though not quite out.

All-in-all, Syria has been a winning wicket for Moscow. They talk smack about Assad to entertain the Westerners, but they aren’t likely to risk losing it all by unseating him until they can be sure the replacement will be at least as useful.