The Only Syrian Solution

T. Belman. Right on. The US could end this war quickly by protecting the Kurds in the lands they have won, militarily and diplomatically, and destroying ISIS. Another thing that should be done is to cede the Golan to Israel.

A partition plan won’t solve everything. But the Balkan example shows it can work.

By Bret Stephens, WSJ

Barack Obama’s efforts to reach a Syrian cease-fire deal with Vladimir Putin went nowhere again on Monday, with the president citing “gaps of trust” with his Russian counterpart. So what else is an out-of-ideas administration to do except immediately return to the same failed cease-fire negotiations—only this time with more cowbell?

To date, there have been 17 major peace initiatives for Syria in a little more than five years. These include the Annan plan of 2012; the Brahimi plan from later that year; Genevas I, II, and III; the “Vienna Process”; the “Four Committees Initiative.” Every name smacks of failure. The result is close to five million refugees, some eight million internally displaced people and 400,000 dead.

Why does Mr. Obama think that a new cease-fire deal will succeed where all previous ones have failed? My guess is he doesn’t, but then again a policy of diplomatic gestures is what you’re left with when you give up on a policy of military leverage. The gesture toward a humanitarian cease-fire for the besieged city of Aleppo is merely of a piece with the president’s other empty declarations, like his 2011 demand for Bashar Assad to go and his 2012 chemical weapons red line.

Mr. Obama will leave office in 136 days, and the new administration will need its own Syria policy. The first and most essential step: Renounce the “fundamental principle,” laid down last year by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, that “Syria should be a unified country.”

The war in Syria is a complex business, significantly involving four foreign states—Russia, Iran, Turkey and the U.S.—and at least five major nonstate militias, along with the Assad regime itself. But at its root the war is a zero-sum struggle for power. Either Mr. Assad wins absolutely or his opponents do. No government can long accept a compromised sovereignty. If Syria is to remain a unified country in principle, its warring factions will fight for as long as they are able to make it unified in fact.

The opposite of absolute victory in Syria is absolute annihilation, which is why it was foolish of the Obama administration to predict that the Assad regime, champion of a four-million-strong Alawite minority, was going to crumble the way the Gadhafi regime did in Libya. The brutality of Mr. Assad’s forces is merely the reflection of what they fear will be done to them. The more brutal they are, the more brutal they must become.

How to move beyond the logic of win or die? The best option is to partition the country. The idea isn’t new, and critics point out that partition plans have been known to fail, that drawing boundaries is messy, that new borders won’t necessarily solve (and could aggravate) internecine rivalries, and that outside actors—Turkey above all—would have the grounds and the means to object.

All this is true, but it needs to be weighed against the likely alternative, which is some variation of the diplomatic efforts now taking place. Will advocates of the current course admit they have failed when the fatality rate rises to 500,000? Or does it have to go all the way to one million?

The point of partition isn’t to solve all of Syria’s problems. It’s to shrink them to more manageable dimensions. A future Alawite state along Syria’s Mediterranean coast might ensure the political survival of the Assad dynasty. But it could be a secure ethnic homeland, free from the brutal entanglements of the rest of Syria, especially if it has security guarantees from Russia. A Kurdish zone, joined to Iraqi Kurdistan, would be viewed as a threat by the Turks. But it could be a safe haven for civilians if defended by U.S. air power.

As for the rest of Syria, pacification would require a limited but decisive NATO intervention to rout ISIS from its strongholds, equip and aid the Free Syrian Army so that it can lift the siege of Aleppo and march on Damascus, and enjoin Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates to deploy a long-term Arab stabilization force. The prospect for any of this happening is directly correlated to the perception of American seriousness—a perception that will only materialize once Mr. Obama leaves office.

It’s true that for each of these points there are reservations and doubts. Can the Turks accept an extended Kurdish state? They already do with Iraqi Kurdistan, and the U.S. could mollify Ankara by insisting the Syrian Kurds sever ties with the Kurdish PKK guerrillas in Turkey. Would the Assad regime’s patrons accept a rump Alawite state? They might, if the alternative is utter defeat. Will ISIS be easy to defeat, and the rest of Syria easy to pacify? No, but ISIS and its terrorist cousins will have to be destroyed sooner or later.

In the 1990s the world was confronted by a similar spiral of horrors in the Balkans. The U.S. belatedly intervened with military force and local proxies to achieve decisive political results. What was once Yugoslavia is today seven separate countries. The foreign-policy achievement of the Clinton administration could yet be the model for its successor.

September 6, 2016 | 4 Comments »

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  1. Whatever is logical has nothing to do with politics.
    This US Adm will NOT protect the Kurds who seem not to be interested to unite. Without unity there can’t be purpose. And for the Golan, IL must take it since no one will give it to IL.
    IL could make Assad an offer that he cannot refuse. To assure his survival in exchange of the Golan!

  2. Rival Peace Plans Won’t Save Syria By Dr. JONATHAN SPYER

    Hezi Aris 4:30pm • August 15, 2015 Governance, International, Politics Leave a Comment

    Dr. Jonathan Spyer Jonathan is the Rubin Center for Research in International Affairs Director and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is the author of “The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict” (Continuum, 2011).

    Dr. Jonathan Spyer Jonathan is the Rubin Center for Research in International Affairs Director and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is the author of “The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict” (Continuum, 2011).

    As the civil war over the ruins of Syria grinds on into its fifth year, the fighting seems nowhere near an end. Indeed, there is no longer a single war taking place in the country. Rather, as Syria physically divides into separate entities, so the conflict, too, further subdivides, spawning new conflicts.

    There are today no less than five different conflicts taking place within the borders of the country: the contests between the Sunni Arab rebels and the Assad regime/Hezbollah/Iran (the original war which brought about the others); the Kurdish YPG’s fight against Islamic State; intermittent clashes between the Sunni Arab rebels and Islamic State; Islamic State’s own war against the Assad regime; and now also the renewed war between Turkey and the PKK, which is being played out partly on Syrian soil.

    The presence of these five interlocking conflicts notwithstanding, efforts to make diplomatic progress toward some form of settlement, or at least freezing of the conflict, are under way.

    There are today no less than five different conflicts taking place within the borders of Syria.

    Recent days have seen details emerge of two rival “peace plans” for Syria. One of these is sponsored by the Iranians, the main supporters of the Assad regime, the other is the handiwork of Saudi Arabia, which wants the removal of the regime and supports elements among the Sunni Arab rebellion against it.

    Neither plan stands much chance of implementation. But the content of the plans and their very existence demonstrate that the Syrian situation is not static. They also indicate the extent to which the aims of the backers of the combatant sides are currently irreconcilable.

    The Iranian proposal, according to a report in the Araby al-Jadeed newspaper on Monday, constitutes a plan for the freezing of the conflict in place and the subsequent de facto partition of Syria. According to the newspaper, the plan is being promoted by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif during his current round of meetings with regional officials.

    The plan proposes that each side would hold on to its current areas of control, except for the city of Aleppo, which would come under international supervision.

    The regime and the rebels would then cooperate with the international coalition in the fight against Islamic State. Negotiations between the sides would continue, with the intention of forming a “national government, writing a new constitution and holding nationally monitored elections.”

    The Assad regime now controls just over 20 percent of Syrian territory.

    The regime, according to the plan, would keep control of “Damascus, the Syrian-Lebanese border, Qalamoun, western Ghouta, Zabadani, Homs and the area to its west all the way to the Syrian coast, and Tartus Port.”

    This is in essence the area controlled by the regime today. Yet the apparent willingness of the regime’s backers to “settle” for this area rather than to continue to hold out for the eventual reconquest of the entire country (Syrian President Bashar Assad‘s aim throughout the war) reflects the declining military fortunes of the Assad regime.

    The regime now controls only just over 20 percent of the area of Syria. In the north, it is reeling from the hammer blows inflicted by the Jaysh al-Fatah (Army of Conquest) rebel coalition. This coalition includes some of the strongest Islamist rebel forces in Syria. Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian franchise of al-Qaida, is a component part of it, as is Ahrar al-Sham, the most powerful of the “homegrown” Salafi groups on the Syrian battlefield.

    It is supported by Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi provision of US Tow antitank missiles, transported across the border from Turkey, is playing a telling role in the fighting, reducing the regime’s advantage in heavy weaponry.

    As of now, Jaysh al-Fatah is attempting to destroy the final regime positions on the Al-Ghab plain. Loss of these positions raises the frightening prospect for the regime of the front line moving into the populated parts of Latakia Province, the heartland of its support.

    Already, the Alawi villages in Latakia are within range of the rebels’ missiles. Entry into Latakia would effectively end Assad’s hopes of preserving intact a safe area of the country for the members of his sect and other supporters of the regime.

    Should the pivotal Joureen base in Ghab fall to the rebels, the regime would then face the possibility of its supply lines to the city of Hama further south being cut off.

    The regime is therefore fighting desperately to hold its positions on the flat, barren Sahel al-Ghab. Hezbollah fighters are there, fighting alongside Shi’ite “volunteers” from as far afield as Afghanistan.

    The motley collection of regime defenders in Ghab reflects the key difficulty that Assad has faced since the commencement of the war. The narrow base of support of his regime has meant that he has faced severe challenges in mustering sufficient manpower to defend the areas under his control. continue at http://www.yonkerstribune.com/2015/08/rival-peace-plans-wont-save-syria-by-dr-jonathan-spyer

  3. The long civil war in Syria is still far from conclusion. Any real possibility of rebel victory ended with the entry of Russian forces last autumn — but while the initiative is now with the Assad regime, the government’s forces are also far from a decisive breakthrough. So who, if anyone, should the UK be backing in the Syrian slaughterhouse, and what might constitute progress in this broken and burning land?

    It ought to be fairly obvious why a victory for the Assad regime would be a disaster for the West. Assad, an enthusiastic user of chemical weapons against his own people, is aligned with the most powerful anti–western coalition in the Middle East. This is the alliance dominated by the Islamic Republic of Iran. It includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Shia militias of Iraq, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. If Assad won, the Iranian alliance would consolidate its domination of the entire land area between the Iraq-Iran border and the Mediterranean Sea — a major step towards regional hegemony for Iran. So an Assad victory would be good for Islamism — at least of the Shia variety — and bad for world peace. It should be prevented.

    The controversy begins when one starts to look at the alternative to an Assad victory. Continue article at http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/08/who-should-rule-syria-nobody/

  4. Reality check is they are going to keep fighting for a long time.

    No winners is a good result for Israel.

    Hezi/Syrian/Iranian side as a winner would be a disaster for Israel.