The war is far from over, but the faint shape of an endgame is
coalescing amid the bloodbath.
At an early stage of the war
in #Syria, an Iraqi official went to see a Nato commander. “What’s the
difference between what is happening in Syria and Libya [where Muammar Gaddafi
had just been overthrown]?” he asked. The reply of the Nato general was simple
and crisp. “Russia is back,” he said.
The rebirth of Russia as a
great power was evident early on 12 February in Munich when the US Secretary of
State, John Kerry, and the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, announced a
plan for the delivery of aid to besieged cities in Syria and a “cessation of
hostilities”, to be followed by a more formal ceasefire. Russia and the US have
the power to make things happen or stop happening in Syria that is not absolute
but is greater than anybody else.
The announcement was greeted
with scepticism by the media and diplomats, who swiftly pointed to the many
holes in the agreement and the many things that could go wrong. But the doubts
may be exaggerated because military and diplomatic developments in Syria are
reinforcing each other.
Russian military intervention means that President
Bashar al-Assad is not going to lose the war and it is difficult to see what
Syrian opposition forces alone can do to stop the Russian-backed Syrian army in
coalition with a Shia axis led by Iran. President Bashar al-Assad says he wants
victory but it is unlikely that that the US and its regional allies will accept
total defeat.
The greater Russian and
Iranian involvement in the war is unsurprising. It was clear from about 2012
that Russia and the Shia axis were not going to let President Bashar al-Assad
be overthrown, and would counter any escalation by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the
Sunni powers.
This happened last year when an offensive by Syrian non-Islamic
State (Isis) rebels led by the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham
won a series of military victories in Idlib province in northern Syria. Their
success provoked Russian military intervention on 30 September which shifted
the balance of power in the war in favour of Assad to a degree that could only
be reversed by the direct intervention of the Turkish army.
It is getting a bit late even
for this. On 2 February, the Syrian army, assisted by heavy Russian airstrikes,
cut the road between Aleppo and Turkey. The Russian and Syrian governments are
getting close to sealing off northern Syria from Turkey in a tacit alliance
with the Syrian Kurds who have been advancing from the east. These are crucial
moments of the war as Turkey and Saudi Arabia debate military
intervention.
A striking feature of the
Russian-Syrian-Iranian offensive is the mute response so far of the US and
allies.
Saudi Arabia and Turkey no
longer have the arm lock over Western policy in the war that they once had,
when it was assumed that their Syrian allies and proxies would win and Assad
would go. Not only did this not happen, but the rise of Isis in 2014
and its sweeping victories in Iraq and Syria showed that the Syrian war could
not be allowed to fester.
The hope by Western powers that the crisis could be
contained was destroyed last year by two events: the flood of migrants from
Syria and Iraq making their way to western Europe and the massacre of 130
people by Isis gunmen and suicide bombers in Paris on 13
November.
The agreement in Munich is bad
news for Isis. The Western claim that the Russians were not fighting Isis but
focused on eliminating a mysterious “moderate” opposition, which was said to
pose a great threat to Assad, was always something of a propaganda slogan. In
reality, the Russian aircraft attacked all armed opposition groups threatening
Assad. These were primarily al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham in the north-east, Jaish
al-Islam close to Damascus and IS further east.
It was a convenient myth for
the Syrian opposition and its outside backers to claim that neither the Syrian
army nor the Russians were fighting Isis. “The Russians say they want to
destroy Daesh [Isis] but they are not bombing Daesh: they are bombing the
moderate opposition,” said the Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who retains a
touching belief in the existence of a powerful moderate faction.
In reality, the Syrian army,
now backed by the Russian air force, has long been confronting Isis in
central Syria though generally without much success. Isis posted
revolting videos showing Syrian soldiers being shot or decapitated.
Isis itself is a better
source than Mr Hammond on who it believes it is fighting in defence of its
self-declared caliphate, as is shown by its figures for “martyrdom operations”
or suicide bombings it carried out in January. In an Instagram, it claims 85
such attacks over the month, of which 47 were in the form of Vehicle Borne
Explosive Devices (VBEDs) and 38 were by individuals wearing explosive belts.
The biggest number of these attacks were directed against the Iraqi army, which
was the target in 54 of them of which 28 were VBEDs and 26 explosive belts. But
the second largest number of attacks has been the Syrian army, which was the
target of 18 VBEDs and 11 explosive belts.
Isis is now beginning to crumble at
the edges, though it is a long way from defeat. It is more vulnerable in Syria
than Iraq because it was born out of the Iraq war after the invasion in 2003
and its leaders are mostly Iraqi. In Iraq, it dominates the Sunni armed
opposition to the government and the Kurds, while in Syria it is only one of
several opposition movements, though it is much the most powerful.
The high
point of its success was in 2014 when it captured Mosul, and it has generally
struck at the weakest target. But today it can win no more cheap victories. It
faces four enemies – the Iraqi army, the Syrian army, the Iraqi Kurds and the
Syrian Kurds – all of whom are receiving strong air support from either the US
or Russia which vastly multiplies their fire power.
The war is far from over, but
the likely winners and losers are becoming clearer. There is going to be no
radical regime change in Damascus. The Sunni Arab opposition has failed to win
power in Syria and is on the defensive in Iraq. The Kurds in both countries are
politically and militarily more powerful than ever because they are effective
opponents of Isis, but, once it is defeated, the Kurds fear being
marginalised.
Isis is penned into an
increasingly isolated and heavily bombarded caliphate, but may well show that
it is still a power to be feared by carrying out spectacular atrocities abroad
like the blowing up of a Russian aircraft with a bomb or the slaughter in Paris
last year.
Regional powers such as
Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar failed to overthrow Assad, and have achieved
none of their war aims. Iran and the Shia coalition it leads have been much
more successful. Though President Obama’s cautious policy is often criticised,
he has suffered no real defeats. When Russia entered the Syrian war four months
ago, pundits predicted that it would regret it, but instead it has become central
to deciding how the war will end.
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