Talking with the Al Assad regime is futile

In the Gulf News debate this month we have two of our leading opinion writers arguing on the relevance of Bashar Al Assad in the peace negotiations and future of Syria. For the contrasting view to this article, that it is already happening, go here

Regrettably, talking with the Bashar Al Assad regime will not put an end to the bloodshed in Syria because, and this must be stated as clearly as possible, the Syrian regime is not interested in a political settlement to the civil war. After five years of intense warfare, which cost the lives of nearly half-a-million [250,000 killed in various battlefields and as many lost due to the collapse of the country’s health care system], shadowed by the literal destruction of the country, Damascus is still unwilling to concede that the vast majority of Syrians have rejected the Baath regime and plan to replace it with one that could potentially be accountable to the governed. We are not there yet, of course, and we may not get there for several more years, but Al Assad remained unwilling to facilitate those goals.

Undeniably, world powers moved to advance their own interests, which seldom coincided with those of the battered nation. Iran and Russia perceived Syria as an ally worth defending — the first holding to its last base in the Arab world, while the second consolidating itself after making great advances in Iraq and Lebanon. Neither extended aid to help Syrians live in dignity and freedom. For their part, leading western powers wavered as they usually do, with United States President Barack Obama calling on Al Assad to step down before drawing imaginary red lines that he never intended to defend. John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, conceded in mid-March 2015 that the US may have to negotiate with the Syrian regime within the Geneva I process, although Jen Psaki, his spokeswoman, quickly moved to clarify that “It would not be and would never be — and it wasn’t what Secretary Kerry was intending to imply — that would be Al Assad himself”. Similarly, European leaders excelled in the rhetoric category, having adopted alternative priorities after the Second World War that considered non-European concerns as secondary objectives. The only group of countries that rejected Al Assad were Syria’s former Arab partners, led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and most of the Gulf Cooperation Council states.

This position resurfaced a few weeks ago in Moscow, when the Saudi Foreign Minister, Adel Al Jubeir, reiterated Riyadh’s stance that Al Assad must go. Importantly, it was a reaffirmation of Arab positions, which came as a surprise to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov — though it should not have. Both the League of Arab States (LAS) and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation suspended Syria’s membership precisely because they could no longer contemplate ties with this regime. League officials proposed various peace plans starting in 2011, including sending monitors in December of that year, though most were pulled out in January 2012 after heightened violence. Arab leaders blessed all peace initiatives, including the Russian proposal after Lavrov convened “informal” talks in his capital and, despite Syrian National Council reticence, hope that Moscow would succeed. It did not because Russia, through its Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, balanced its humanitarian aid focus with continued arms sales to Damascus that stiffened Al Assad’s resolve.

It must be noted that all Arab states backed Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general who became a Joint Special UN-LAS Envoy in March 2012, though Annan could not secure a ceasefire. Nor could he obtain the Syrian regime’s pledges to initiate deliberations with the opposition on various aspirations and concerns. Annan resigned and was replaced by seasoned Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi on September 1, 2012, and while many anticipated that he would successfully crack the Baath shield, everyone was disappointed when he could not.

Mercifully, these changes did not prevent the United Nations to organise the Geneva I and II peace conferences, to initiate negotiations between the regime and opposition forces. Geneva II, in particular, aimed to discuss a transitional government, which was a non-starter for Al Assad. Brahimi resigned in May 2014, replaced two months later by Staffan de Mistura, whose ephemeral new proposals to end the war were only known to him. Interestingly, De Mistura was only a UN peace envoy for Syria, as the LAS no longer saw any merit in adding its voice to the cacophony that drowned the barrel bombs dropped by Syrian Arab Army helicopters on civilians.

There have been no peace talks since the Geneva II meetings in early 2014 and none were expected anytime soon because Damascus dismissed various ideas, including one proposed by John Kerry, who declared in March 2015 that the Syrian president should be part of contemplated talks. Beyond its audacity, most probably spurred by Iranian and Russian prodding, Al Assad rejected this carefully worded hint — delivered in a cynical “declarations from outside do not concern us” — that highlighted the strongman’s state of mind. Unlike the confused politicians in Washington, whose goal apparently is to “destroy” Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) that was not one, Al Assad actually believed that he was better placed to eliminate his ‘Caliphate’ alter-ego. It was unclear whether Turkey’s most recent decisions to kill two birds with the same stone — Daesh and the Kurdish PKK — would alter western perceptions of Al Assad, though France insisted that the Syrian president could not be part of a negotiated solution to the war. Britain held a similar position, even if the recent unbecoming stampede to Tehran, a consequence of the P5+1 (United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany) accords with Iran over the latter’s nuclear programmes, spoke volumes.

Ironically, Al Assad has repeatedly signalled that he had actually won the war, which implied that a negotiated political transition was off the table. Why negotiate with the vanquished? In the end, Damascus concluded that western powers were far more interested in defeating Daesh than helping the Syrian opposition topple the regime. Under these circumstances, and while the cynical argued that Washington and others worried about who might replace Al Assad — which apparently persuaded them to speak to the strongman — doing so enhanced Daesh and literally ensured that the extremist group might march into Damascus. No one should be surprised when that occurs.

Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is the author of Iffat Al Thunayan: An Arabian Queen, London: Sussex Academic Press, 2015.