The problem no one really wants to solve

Ten years after its internal conflict started, Elizabeth Thompson of American University hosted a panel on what the the Biden Administration might be able to do about Syria. Conditions there are dire. US policy has been disappointing. What can a new president do to establish a legitimate government able to rebuild? Mustafa Gurbuz, also of American University, moderated.

Hadeel Oueis of BBC Arabic reminded what has gone wrong in Syria. The Assad regime responded brutally to protests, which pushed them in the the direction of militarization and Islamicization, as militia groups and Islamists had advantages in financing and organization. Peaceful change was quickly ruled out. Today, the best prospects are in the Northeast, where the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) control security and the autonomous administration governs in a decentralized way, with strong participation by women as well as checks and balances.

Amy Austin Holmes of the Council on Foreign Relations suggested we don’t know what to expect from Biden about Syria specifically, a subject neither he nor his people have addressed except for humanitarian imperatives, but if he wants to reclaim US credibility and moral authority bold steps are needed on three issues concerning vulnerable people:

1. ISIS still a big problem, especially at the Al Hol camp. Washington should take back its own citizens from there for trial in the US and establish a timeline for other countries to take back theirs.
2. Christians and Yezidis still under threat. Hundreds of thousands have fled the Turkish intervention in northern Syria intervention and should be enabled to return home.
3. Kurds, and in particular Kurdish women, have been excluded from diplomatic talks on Syria. They play strong roles in northeastern Syria in both the SDF forces and in the civilian autonomous administration. Biden has given women important roles in his own cabinet, and it has been demonstrated repeatedly that women’s participation in peace talks leads to improved outcomes.

US forces are likely to remain in northeastern Syria to work by, with, and through the SDF, which has demonstrated significant capacity to overcome Arab/Kurdish tensions.

Dafne McCurdy of CSIS underlined that Syria will not be a top priority for Biden but that its humanitarian crisis ranks high, especially with Samantha Power at USAID. The situation is dire, but the US can have a positive impact because it is the biggest donor. It will need to focus on two priorities:

1. Renewal of cross-border assistance in western Syria: The UN Security Council will vote in July on whether to keep open the one remaining authorized border crossing for aid to Idlib. If it fails to do so, the US may still be able to use nongovernmental organizations to ship aid across the border, but not at the scale that the UN is capable of.
2. Reform of aid to regime-controlled areas, which Assad has used to reward supporters.

Humanitarian aid is not political, but stabilization assistance is, especially in an area of geopolitical competition. The US needs to buttress local authorities who stand up to outside meddling. But US goals have not been clear, because they are limited to one part of Syria and therefore disconnected from a nation-wide strategy. President Trump’s erratic policy did not allow stabilization to play its proper role in geopolitical competition.

Aaron Stein of the Foreign Policy Research Institute agreed that Syria is not a high priority for the Biden administration. The Syrian opposition won’t be a strong factor in its decisionmaking. The main issues will be humanitarian assistance and counter-terrorism. Washington needs to be talking with the Russians, who are in a strong position in Syria. Sanctions work to impoverish the Syrian regime, but they have been ineffective in producing a sustained political outcome. Some eventual sanctions relief in exchange for release of political prisoners is a possibility. The proliferation of arms and the large numbers of fighters will be problems for many years.

Idlib is essentially a stalemate, with Russia and the regime on one side and Turkey on the other, along with the HTS al Qaeda offshoot who are trying to soften their image. The best outcome is the status quo from the US perspective, but it leaves the US dependent on designated terrorist groups in both northwestern (HTS) and northeastern Syria (the PKK, which is the core of the SDF). The US is stuck with bad options.

Joshua Landis, University of Oklahoma, views Assad as having won militarily, as he now controls 65-70% of Syria’s territory but he wants it all. Washington wants political change and has used aid as a tool to feed the opposition as much as regime has used it against the opposition. Assad will focus in the immediate future not on Idlib, which is hard, but on northeastern Syria, because it is a soft spot. He may go after Tanf, which is important to trade links with Iraq and Iran. The Syrian people are pawns in larger geopolitical struggle

Trump used Turkey against Iran and Russia, thus limiting what Assad could do in the north. Biden is likely to be less friendly to Turkey but won’t want to undermine the Turks in Syria. Some Americans are talking about a federal Syria, with Idlib and the northeast remaining outside Damascus’ control as the US presses for regime change there. But in the end the big issues for the Americans are pulling Turkey out of Russia’s orbit and dealing with Iran. Biden might toughen on Iran in Syria because of the nuclear deal, where he will need to soften.

Bottom line: Syria is not a problem Washington will focus on, as there are no good solutions. But they are likely to keep troops there. If the Americans were to withdraw, the Kurds would be sitting ducks and would have to make a deal with Damascus. Their civilian and military organizations would crumble. At least now in the northeast there is a military command under a civilian government. In the northwest, military and Islamist forces rule under Turkish control.