The war in Syria is a stalemate and disaster. Civilian casualties are appalling, cities lie in ruins, and people flee the desolation by the tens of thousand. The former country is a training ground for jihadis and terrorists from Morocco to China.
Preliminary talks are underway but any agreement is months away, at least. Despite the exhaustion of combatants and the pressure from world opinion, peace talks will encounter difficult details and obstinate opponents.
The Russian-Iranian intervention – aims and limitations
In recent weeks, the Assad government’s chief allies, Russia and Iran, have sent air support and ground troops, respectively. Their immediate aim is to retake the cities of Idlib and Aleppo. Beyond that, there are two possible aims.
First, Russia may feel that airpower and Iranian troops can drive the rebel forces, including ISIL, out of Syria and restore Damascus’s writ on the country. This is unlikely as it will require a long effort with several pitfalls.
Long-term hostility with the Sunnis will bring Moscow far more trouble than partnership with the Shia countries of Syria and Iran can promise. The Sunnis vastly outnumber the Shias in population, land mass, and wealth. The Saudis have brokered Russian arms sales in Egypt and Lebanon which have been helpful to a country hit by sanctions after its Ukraine campaigns and by low oil prices. Russia may even hope that Sunni states will help regain its military presence in Egypt.
Russia has a sizable Sunni population who are grumbling over Moscow’s support for Shia powers. Chechens and Dagestanis have struck at Moscow in recent years, and have hundreds if not thousands of fighters with ISIL and al Qaeda. Some of them will be eager to return home.
Kremlin generals were junior officers in Afghanistan and know well the perils of warring with Muslim fighters backed by foreign powers. They have likely apprised President Putin of this. He will not want them to apprise him more forcefully one day.
The second and more probable aim is to impress upon the rebels and their backers that Assad cannot be defeated and that peace talks are then only path to ending the war. Russia can present itself as both willing to use force and supportive of peace talks. Indeed, Moscow has already called for negotiations and positioned itself to play a leading role. Meaningful negotiations, however, require the other side’s willingness to cooperate.
Saudi Arabia
The rebels have wealthy foreign backers, especially the Saudis, who can match Russian moves. Indeed, some backers have already upped the ante. The Saudis are undercutting Russian oil prices in Eastern Europe in the hope of cutting Moscow’s export income. More American anti-tank weapons have suddenly arrived.
Saudi Arabia et al may prefer to further punish Russia by goading it into spending more money and possibly sending more troops. The same can be said of the rebel backers in regard to Iran, which is not only spending money but also losing troops in ground engagements.
Saudi judgments will be shaped by sectarian hatreds at least as much as by political reasoning, and by recognition that it has thus far adroitly directed the war solely through proxies and allies, without suffering any casualties.
Iran
Iran has thud far opposed removing Assad from power. That may be negotiable as retention of a Shia-Alawi country is more important than a single figure, reliable though he may now appear. Tehran is determined to restore the land corridor stretching from Iran through Iraq to allies in Lebanon and Syria.
This corridor, crucial as it may appear in Shia capitals, may be unachievable. Most capitals outside Tehran will recognize that. Eastern Syria and western Iraq are outside the control of Damascus and Baghdad. Reconquest is unlikely. A negotiated settlement stipulating free passage between Iran and its allies along the Mediterranean is also unlikely, as no one can guarantee it. ISIL and a miscellany of Sunni warlords will control the route for the foreseeable future.
Ceasefire in place
Any agreement will entail a ceasefire as a prelude to elections or partitions. While this may bring a glimmer of relief to civilians, at least in some areas, it may bring the antagonistic nature of rebel groups to the fore.
If Syrian forces and their allies were to accept a ceasefire or at least refrain from significant operations, rebel groups would fight one another. Their umbrella organizations are wartime expedients, foreign backers are divided on the regions’s future. Areas of control are fluid and contested, governmental abilities are weak.
Are the Kurds to be granted their own homeland? Will Saudi Arabia accept a Muslim Brotherhood statelet? Who will lead the way in attacking ISIL and the al Nusrah Front? Surely, rebel commanders will prefer that rivals storm into that battle and suffer high, possibly ruinous, casualties.
Russia, Iran, and Syria probably recognize this. Indeed, they may be banking on it. Let the rebel groups fight among themselves, preferably in an internecine manner, and let the weaker ones fall or come to Damascus for protection.
©2015 Brian M Downing