Speculation mounts over Washington’s stance on Assad

Recent remarks by senior US officials, including secretary of state John Kerry, indicate a possible softening towards the Syrian regime, reports Taimur Khan.

Rebel fighters from the Ahrar Al Sham Islamic Movement carry their weapons as they move towards their positions near Morek frontline in the northern countryside of Hama on March 16, 2015. Khalil Ashawi/ReutersShow less

NEW YORK // The US secretary of state’s suggestion that Washington is willing to negotiate with Bashar Al Assad to end the Syrian civil war has fuelled speculation that the Obama administration is changing course on its policy towards Damascus.

While the United States is taking steps to increase pressure to bring the Syrian president to the table, John Kerry told CBS News in an interview broadcast on Sunday that Washington will have to “negotiate in the end” with Mr Al Assad.

His comments come on the back of recent public remarks by senior US officials that possibly indicate a softening stance towards the Assad regime.

The state department, however, sought to dispel those claims, saying Mr Kerry’s comments did not deviate from long-standing US policy of supporting the Geneva process that would lead to a political transition which could include regime elements, but that demands the departure of Mr Al Assad.

“He was using Assad as a shorthand, obviously, representative of the regime,” spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Monday, adding that there were no plans for talks to restart as part of the Geneva process.

Mr Kerry’s comments were met with dismay by US allies in the fight against ISIL who have also backed Syrian rebels. On Wednesday, the US’ top envoy to the coalition, retired general John Allen, assured Turkish officials during talks in Ankara that “the United States’ position on Assad has not changed” and that it seeks “a negotiated political outcome ... that does not in the end include Assad”.

But Mr Kerry’s remarks were unusual for their lack of a direct call, however rhetorical, for Mr Al Assad to relinquish power. Instead, they focused on dealing directly with the Syrian leader.

Analysts largely agreed that Mr Kerry had not announced a change in direction, but had also not demonstrated that the US was any closer to matching its previously stated support for the Syrian opposition with a coherent strategy to force Damascus and its backers to seriously negotiate with them.

“There is no plan that I see to bring about a transition or pressure Assad or Iran in new ways,” said Andrew Tabler, an expert on Syria policy at the Washington Institute think tank.

The US administration has announced plans for an additional US$70 million (Dh257m) in non-lethal support for opposition groups as well as the launch of an overt train-and-equip programme to create a new rebel force over the next three years. However, this force will focus solely on fighting ISIL, rather than the Assad regime.

US partners in the Geneva process – which ended in failure after a second round of talks early last year – distanced themselves from Mr Kerry’s comments despite the state department’s clarifications.

Mr Al Assad himself used the minor gaffe to turn the tables on Washington, casting his government as the legitimate power.

“We are still hearing the declarations and we should wait for actions and then decide,” he told Syrian state television, adding that a change in the international community’s position would be a positive step.

Mr Kerry’s statements come after remarks last week by the CIA director, John Brennan, that the US does not want to take any steps that would lead to a collapse of Mr Al Assad’s regime.

“What we don’t want to do is to allow those extremist elements that in some parts of Syria are ascendant right now” – such as ISIL and Jabhat Al Nusra – to “march into Damascus”, Mr Brennan said during a talk at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

An annual national security assessment by the US director of national intelligence released in January also excluded the Iranian-backed Hizbollah and Iran from a list of direct terrorist threats for the first time in years.

Taken together with the ongoing nuclear talks with Iran, the public comments from Mr Kerry and Mr Brennan are likely to fuel the perception among Washington’s regional allies that its narrow counter-terrorism focus on fighting ISIL is leading it to an open alliance with Tehran and a tacit one with Damascus, which has consistently sought to frame the choice in Syria as one between itself and extremists.

“There’s an alignment of some interests between ourselves and Iran clearly in terms of what ISIL has done there,” Mr Brennan said. “And so we work closely with the Iraqi government. The Iranians work closely with the Iraqi government as well.”

Some observers say that such an alignment makes sense, given the continuing reluctance of president Barack Obama to commit significant US resources, including ground troops, to a strategy in Syria that creates an alternative to Mr Al Assad as well as the extremist groups that have hijacked the rebellion.

“American policy for the past four years has been to contain the violence in Syria, and that’s what we’re doing today,” said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “That’s the least politically damaging for Obama and the least expensive.”

This containment strategy has meant bolstering the ability of Lebanese security forces to defend its borders, aid for Jordan and the backing of the rebel southern command in Syria that can also help provide a buffer along the border with Jordan and Israel. In Iraq, the US has backed ground forces dominated by Shiite militias and the Kurdish peshmerga fighting against ISIL.

“The US generals are saying, ‘you don’t want us to go in and kill them, so let Iranians and Shiite groups on the ground do it’, they’re the ones tasked with killing these ISIL guys and taking their territory” in Iraq, Mr Landis said.

But that still leaves the question of how to defeat ISIL in its Syrian base, not merely contain it, he added.

The stated course is to create a new force through the train-and-equip programme and bypass the Syrian political opposition, which is riven with infighting and on the verge of collapse, as well as any remaining allied rebel groups.

This will be the “basis for US policy going forward”, Mr Tabler, the analyst, said. “It will grow, it is necessary, and it gives you a Sunni force that has command and control and is under the control of the international community, not the different factions of the opposition.”

Syria’s key international ally, Russia, may also play an unexpected role in pushing Mr Al Assad to the negotiating table.

Mr Tabler said diplomatic sources tell him “there are some signals” that Russia is increasingly concerned that the takeover by extremists of half of Syrian territory, not far from its southern border, is a dire security risk.

Russian officials realise “it’s too hard to shoot your way out of the problem in Syria”, and that the US administration is “looking more at what might be possible with the Russians”.

Moscow is scheduled to host talks with some Syrian opposition figures next month. It is still not clear who will attend, but analysts are not optimistic.

“Where it all leads, I don’t know,” Mr Tabler said. “It’s best to keep expectations low.”