Syria: no attractive propositions, so Biden is staying the course

Secretary of State Blinken at a press conference with the Israeli and UAE foreign ministers today said more about Syria than I remember since the beginning of the Biden Administration, in response to a question about normalization that other countries are indulging in:

…let me talk about Syria first and then come to the second part of the – the first part of the question second.

First, to put this in focus, these initial nine months of the administration we have been focused on a few things when it comes to Syria: Expanding humanitarian access for people who desperately need that assistance, and we had some success, as you know, with renewing the critical corridor in northwestern Syria to do that; sustaining the campaign that we have with the coalition against ISIS and al-Qaida in Syria; making clear our commitment, our ongoing commitment to demand accountability from the Assad regime and the preservation of basic international norms like promoting human rights and nonproliferation through the imposition of targeted sanctions; and sustaining local ceasefires, which are in place in different parts of the country.  So this has been the focus of our action for these last nine months. 

As we’re moving forward, in the time ahead, keeping violence down; increasing humanitarian assistance and focusing our military efforts on any terrorist groups that pose a threat to us or to our partners, with the intent and capacity to do that.  These are going to be the critical areas of focus for us, and they’re also, I think, important to advancing a broader political settlement to the Syrian conflict consistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2254. 

What we have not done and what we do not intend to do is to express any support for efforts to normalize relations or rehabilitate Mr. Assad, or lifted [sic] a single sanction on Syria or changed [sic] our position to oppose the reconstruction of Syria until there is irreversible progress toward a political solution, which we believe is necessary and vital.

https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-and-israeli-alternate-prime-minister-and-foreign-minister-yair-lapid-and-united-arab-emirates-foreign-minister-sheikh-abdullah-bin-zayed-al-nahyan-at-a-joint-press-availab/

This is a restatement of well-established US priorities: humanitarian assistance, reduction in violence, counter-terrorism, and irreversible progress toward a political solution before reconstruction or normalization.

So nothing new. What’s missing? should always be the next question.

Tony fails to deal with the threat of a serious military clash between NATO ally Turkey and the Kurdish-led forces that are conducting the campaign against both terrorists and the regime in northeastern Syria, with American support. He is silent on concerns about Iran using Syrian territory to threaten Israel. Nor does he indicate that the United States opposes normalization by others, in particular Jordan and the UAE. And he is silent on brutality-laced Russian and Iranian support for the Syrian regime, which in due course may become capable of challenging the Kurdish presence in the northeast and the Turkish presence inside Syria’s northern border. So yes, continuity of a policy that is silent on important issues and has so far failed to produce substantial results.

Is there a better approach? We could certainly tighten sanctions so that jet-setting scions of the Syrian elite don’t roam Los Angeles in Ferraris, but that won’t change anything in Syria. We could help the Germans mount a “universal jurisdiction” case against President Assad himself, in absentia, but that would set a legal precedent that might boomerang on prominent Americans. We could try harder to mediate some sort of accommodation between the Syrian Kurds and Turkey, as we did once with a modicum of success between the Iraqi Kurds and Turkey. Or we could try to negotiate autonomous status for the Kurds within Syria in return for US withdrawal, though the regime would be no more likely than the Taliban to stick to the terms of a withdrawal agreement. The Kurds would likely revert to attacking inside Turkey as well as Turkish-controlled Syria in order to curry favor with Assad. It suits the Kurds and Turkey to have the Americans remain in Syria.

I won’t even bother with military options against the Russians or the regime. The Americans take some shots against the Iranians and their proxies in Syria, but they aren’t going to risk war with Russia or the civilian casualties that taking on the regime would entail.

So no, there are not a lot of attractive propositions in Syria. Especially after the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Administration can ill afford a comparable mess in Syria, never mind an influx into the US of tens of thousands Syrian Kurds and Arabs who helped the US during the past decade and have legitimate claims to asylum. No wonder Biden is staying the course.