From Russian escalation to a negotiated solution in Syria

Secretary of State John Kerry’s meetings with counterparts from the Gulf states, Iran, and Russia in Vienna represent the best chance the United States has for resolving Syria’s civil war. While Russia’s recent escalation clearly risks prolonging the violence needlessly, it could turn out to be  the catalyst for a resolution to the crisis. Russia’s strikes so far and the fact that the meetings are happening at all are a reason to pursue this diplomatic opening, especially when the United States has few options in Syria short of risking a direct military conflict with Russia. 

When Russia began conducting airstrikes in defense of the Assad regime a month ago, the assessment of many Kremlinologists was that it was the latest manifestation of President Vladimir Putin’s impulsive action bias. “The question is, have the Russians thought two or three moves ahead?” Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said. “This to me looks suspiciously like what happened in Ukraine, where what seemed like a good idea, a very pressurized decision by the Russians to unleash aggression against Ukraine, has backfired quite badly.”

{mosads}Now it is increasingly clear that Russia is not trying to retake all of Syria. The Russian escalation, even supported by the approximately 2,000 Iranian troops the United States believes is operating with Assad regime forces, is not of the scale necessary to completely shift the balance of power in Syria. As Daniel Serwer noted at the outset, even if Russia were to fill the new barracks they’ve constructed, it would constitute “a far bigger commitment than the few advisors Russia has maintained in Syria in the past, but it is not a force likely to make much of a difference…in the ongoing civil war there.” Russia is targeting opposition forces in Aleppo and Idlib, but is not aggressively striking Kurdish militias or the Islamic State.

Outside of Syria, Moscow has been participating in a series of consultations with other foreign leaders about the civil war. There was Assad’s late-night visit to the Kremlin, then talks with the United States, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia in Vienna, some coordination with Iran, and even Russian claims that it was meeting with Syrian rebel groups. Russia appears to be looking for a way to wind down the war sooner rather than later. 

There is an international consensus that the only sustainable conclusion to the crisis in Syria is a negotiated political solution; this is frequently acknowledged by President Obama. Even Assad’s erstwhile arms-supplier China reiterated its support for peace talks at U.N. General Assembly. But there’s also a sense of resignation and diplomatic complacency with the stagnated civil war  

That sense of resignation and complacency isn’t uncommon in stagnated conflicts. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was frustrated by diplomatic stagnation despite on-again off-again warfare along the Suez Canal in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Before the Yom Kippur War, “Sadat felt that the superpowers, eager to solidify the new sense of peaceful coexistence – the détente – developed an interest in a stable Middle Eastern status quo. Consequently, they agreed not to rock the territorial and political boat in the region,” Israeli historian and political scientist Zeev Maoz writes in Defending the Holy Land. As Henry Kissinger noted later in his book Years of Upheaval, “What drove him [Sadat] to the throw of the dice was not the immediate deadlock in the negotiations but the objective stalemate in the real positions of the parties.” 

According to Maoz, Sadat concluded that “unless something drastic happened, the Israeli occupation of the Sinai would be perpetuated by superpower concert. The war was designed to shake up this superpower complacency.” Kissinger corroborates this: Egypt, he wrote, “decided to cut the Gordian knot by war.” Sadat’s initial goals were limited – “an Egyptian drive to occupy a limited strip of land east of the Suez Canal, hold onto it, call it a victory, and sue for a cease-fire,” Maoz writes – and only abandoned after the surprise of his initial, untenable successes. 

Russia, too, could quickly find the limits of its intervention in Syria. The United States and the international community should be preparing to seize this moment – a shock to the stagnated diplomatic efforts – to push for new negotiations and, in the meantime, localized ceasefires to tamp down the violence and facilitate peace talks. The United Nations is trying to reinvigorate its diplomatic efforts and Europe, fresh off the success of the Iran nuclear negotiations and feeling the strain of the Syrian refugee crisis, is eager to participate. China, too, wants a seat at the table. As Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) noted on the House floor recently, the resulting agreement “will undoubtedly be uncomfortable for us,” but is necessary to end the bloodshed. If the U.S. State Department’s recent activity – including Kerry’s meetings with various parties to the conflict and coordinating with Oman as an intermediary to Damascus – is any indication, the Obama administration understands this opportunity.  

The United States has few natural allies in Syria. Efforts to build partner forces, such as the train-and-equip mission, have failed and alternative proposals would take years with little prospect of success – and guarantee the indefinite continuation of the war. Prolonging Syria’s grinding civil war is not in U.S. interests. If Russia’s escalation provides an opportunity for a negotiated solution, the United States should take it.

Stuster is a policy analyst at the National Security Network, where he works on U.S. security and counterterrorism policy in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.