January 19, 2016

Assad Has It His Way

The Peace Talks and After
By Joshua Landis and Steven Simon
President Bashar al-Assad is winning in Syria. Russia has shifted the balance of power
there dramatically. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the UN might insist that
Assad negotiate with his opponents and ultimately cede power to them, but the Syrian
president has no intention of accepting such demands. His advisers state that he will go
to talks in Geneva this month to listen, but not to negotiate. In other words, he is still
out for victory on the battlefield. As the United States enters the now delayed UN
negotiating process, it will have to stay flexible in its expectations and objectives in light
of the shifting military balance on the ground.
The main reason for Assads renewed confidence is a clear reversal of military fortune.
Three months ago, Assads army was beleaguered. A large confederation of jihadist and
Islamist militias calling themselves the Victory Army had achieved something
resembling unity. Built around Syrias two strongest militiasal-Nusra, al Qaedas Syria
franchise; and Ahrar al-Sham, the most powerful Salafi militia in the countrythe
Victory Army conquered two strategic northern cities, Idlib and Jisr al-Shughour, in quick
succession this spring. These victories attracted many other militias into their orbit and
promised success. The expulsion of regime forces from Jisr al-Shughour not only meant
the independence of Idlib more generally but put Latakia, a regime stronghold, in
serious jeopardy. The new resistance army seemed to overcome the oppositions
chronic fragmentation; it was also well armed and supported by the regions Sunni
states.
But Assads greatest advantagea fragmented opposition divided into more than 1,000
constantly feuding militiasseems to be back. Recently, over 20 rebel militia leaders
have been assassinated, most by a breakaway faction of the Victory Army. The militias
that the United States trained and armed at great expense have been crushed, not by
Assad but by other rebels.
Meanwhile, Russias advanced aircraft, helicopters, and tanks have been pounding the
Victory Army for months. Russian aircrews fly close to 200 sorties a day, allowing Assad
and his allies to go on the offensive in both the north and south of Syria. Ahrar al-Sham
has agreed to go to talks in Geneva, an about-face, after snubbing the UN envoy
Staffan de Mistura as an Assad lackey only months ago. Al Qaedas Syria leader
pronounced those who head to Geneva guilty of high treason, a clear death threat but
also an indicator of clear anxiety. Another sign of desperation was the call put out by the
Victory Army to foreign fighters to come join their ranks. Non-jihadist members of the
coalition were infuriated by this tactic, which would inevitably associate them with the
self-proclaimedIslamic State (also known as ISIS), and withdrew from the coalition.
Assad, in short, is dividing his enemies and counting on his ability to pick off one at a
time.

To be sure, Assads advances have been hard fought and slower in coming than his
advisers insisted they would be. The reason is the state of the Syrian army, which is in
shambles, worn down by years of fighting, poverty, and corruption. All the same, it is
hard to imagine Assad losing or being thrown back to some Alawite ethnic canton.
The real question is how much of Syria Assad can retake. Assad believes that the
Russians will carry him to the finish line, but that is not at all certain. The Syrian regime
already rules over some 75 percent of Syrias Arab population. Assad seems convinced
that he can bully the remaining 25 percent into accepting the bitterness of defeat in
exchange for the end to deprivation and war. But that will likely take years. Much
depends on Turkey and the Gulf states, the primary sponsors of the rebels.
Syrias Kurds may also accommodate themselves to Assad. They constitute ten percent
of the population and live in a long ribbon of territory dividing Syria from Turkey that they
have named Rojava. Despite wresting the land from Assad, ISIS, and the rebel militias
at great cost, the Kurds may accept autonomy within a Syrian state rather than
independence as the price of protection against Turkey. Assad, too, may find a Kurdish
enclave a useful buffer against Turkey.
Most important to Assad has been the attitude of the United States. U.S. President
Barack Obamas first reaction to Russias entry into the war on September 30 was to
state, "We're not going to make Syria into a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia.
This was consistent with the administrations long-standing reluctance to go beyond its
current support for a small number of armed groups opposed to the Assad regime.
Moscow has had a long and important relationship with Damascus; Washington has not.
But Obama has not ceded Syria to Russia entirely; rather, he established a tacit division
of labor, by which the United States combats ISIS in the east of the country while
Russia combats Assads foes in the west. Moreover, Obama believes Russia will fail in
its endeavor to restore Assads control over the country as surely as it failed in
Afghanistan in 1979. The fight will become a quagmire, he predicted, which will force
the Russians to come back to the United States for a negotiated solution. He might be
right.
Although Moscow would doubtless favor a negotiated solution that preserved the Assad
regime, Russian officials dismiss the notion that Syria can be likened to Afghanistan or
even to Iraq; rather, they insist that the better analogy is Chechnya, where Russias
superior airpower devastated the rebels at Grozny. After all, they argue, no one is
arming the Syrian opposition with antiaircraft weapons, as U.S. President Ronald
Reagan did the Afghan mujahideen and Arab jihadists.
The war of analogies rages on a second front as well. The U.S. administrations
unwillingness to get involved as a combatant in Syrias civil warand not to make Syria
into a proxy war between the United States and Russiais explained as a desire
to avoid Iraq redux. But in thinking analogically, the presidents critics say, Obama has

mistakenly assumed that the cost of intervention will replicate the steep price paid by
the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. Accordingly, the presidents alleged fixation
on Iraq has blinded him to the costs of inaction, which are on display now in Syria and
more broadly within the region: a humanitarian disaster, the empowerment of Russian
President Vladimir Putin, ISIS emergence, Assads smug survival, and the anguished
disappointment and resentment of traditional allies.
Yet despite their bitter sniping, it seems unlikely that Putins activism will lead Israel or
allies in the Gulf to distance themselves from the United States. Having favorably
compared Russias indiscriminate use of force in Syria with U.S. reticence, Israeli
officials are now fuming over Russias transfer of weapons and know-how to Hezbollah,
Israels sworn adversary. And as far as the Gulf states are concerned, Putins on the
wrong side in the Syrian civil war. Within Syria, the United States long found Russias
military presence to be a manageable problem in the context of U.S. security
requirements in the eastern Mediterranean. Why the presence of a much weaker
Russia within a shattered country whose rump government cant threaten Israel or
Jordan, let alone Turkey, should induce panic is unclear. The limited threat to U.S.
interests would not seem to be a compelling reason to plunge into someone elses civil
war.
Its also unclear what the appropriate analogy might be, if not Iraq. The Balkans
intervention took place under very different circumstances, when Russia was too weak,
distracted, and dependent on Western aid to get in the way. Libya as an analogy is
scarcely more encouraging than Iraq. The Saudi intervention in Yemen is unlikely to
result in a more stable and habitable country.
The cost of inaction, where inaction is defined as the failure to turn the rebels toward the
West and empower Syrias moderates by providing them with arms and money early on,
is difficult to assess. The assertion that the United States has already taken on such
costs assumes that had the United States done something, the Russians would not
have intervened, the armed opposition would be unified, jihadists marginalized, and
Assad on the ropes.
But radicalization was not the result of the United States inaction. Obama could do
nothing to keep the opposition from radicalizing or from forming myriad militias based on
clan, village, and tribal loyalty. The same process of radicalization and fragmentation
has taken place in every Middle Eastern country where the state has been overthrown
by force, whether in Iraq, Yemen, or Libya. Although Syrian liberals do exist, they are
not numerous enough or strong enough to take power and hold the country together. In
every instance, foreign-driven regime change has led to state collapse, social
fragmentation, and radicalization.
Unfortunately, Middle Eastern potentates have built states that are a reflection of
themselves; they collapse when the dictator and his family are changed. They do not
have professional civil services and are not built on solid institutional foundations.
Regime change brings state collapse. This is what happened when Iraqi President

Saddam Hussein was overthrown, it happened with the destruction of the regime of
Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi, and it would happen in Syria. Getting rid of Assad
and his ruling clique would likely lead to state collapse, which is precisely why both the
Iranians and the Russians will not risk it. Think of what Saudi Arabia would become
without the Al Saud. Even Jordanwould likely come unglued without the Hashemite
monarchy to bind together its disparate parts. The radicalization and chaos in the
Middle East is the United States fault to the extent that it has pursued too much regime
change, not because it has pursued too little.
To judge how incompetent the rebels have been in providing a viable or attractive
alternative to Assad, one need merely consider the situation in the province of Idlib,
where the rebels rule. Schools have been segregated, women forced to wear veils, and
posters of Osama bin Laden hung on the walls. Government offices were looted, and a
more effective government has yet to take shape. With the Talibanization of Idlib, the
100-plus Christian families of the city fled. The few Druze villages that remained have
been forced to denounce their religion and embrace Islam; some of their shrines have
been blown up. No religious minorities remain in rebel-held Syria, in Idlib, or elsewhere.
Rebels argue that Assads bombing has ensured their failure and made radicalization
unavoidable. But such excuses can go only so far to explain the terrible state of rebel
Syria or its excesses. We have witnessed the identical evolution in too many other Arab
countries to pin it solely on Assad, despite his culpability for the disaster that has
engulfed his country.
Tragically, an Assad victory cannot solve the underlying problems that sparked the civil
war, even if the regime defeats ISIS, ejects all terrorists, and facilitates large-scale
repatriation of refugees. And no one can stand by watching Syrias descent into ever
greater misery without feeling responsible. But neither can anyone seriously accuse the
United States of being ungenerous with its citizens lives and treasure or of having no
ideals. Americans have learned the hard way in Iraq and Afghanistan that despite their
best efforts, nation building in the Middle East is beyond their ability to carry out alone
within fragmented, traumatized societies.
The United States can and will help Syria, but it wont do so by declaring war on the
regime or the regimes Russian ally. Nor will it help by splitting the country into a
resource-poor and sparsely populated eastern half, where the United States remains
locked in a perpetual war with jihadists, while the Russians and the Assad regime sit
astride a populous, relatively urbanized western Syria with access to the sea.
Regardless of the dark future implied by the present, the United States and its allies
must continue to press for a diplomatically managed transition that eventually leads to
Assads departure, encourage cease-fires that drive down the level of violence pulsing
through Syria, ramp up the Wests humanitarian work, and, of course, continue to batter
ISIS. Above all, it must keep its sights set on a unified Syria, while embracing a resilient
approach that accounts for Assads emerging edge. This is a tall order and will demand
a strategic patience that will be tested daily by the mounting human cost of the crisis.
But there is no alternative.