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Is
Assad's Russian-backed Offensive a Game-changer in Syria?
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Originally published under the title "Precarious Syria
Talks Leave Its Future Uncertain."
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The
failure of the peace talks was foreseen by most serious analysts on
Syria.
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UN Special Envoy on Syria Staffan de Mistura this week announced the
suspension of just-convened peace talks in Geneva intended to resolve the
Syrian civil war.
The failure of the talks was predictable and foreseen by most serious
analysts on Syria. Diplomacy requires compromise. But the forces of
President Bashar Assad, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah are advancing in both
northern and southern Syria.
The dictator and his allies, as a consequence, see no reason to
abandon their core aims or accept a political process leading to a
transition of power.
The action of consequence with regard to Syria is taking place on the
battlefields of Aleppo, Idlib, Deraa and Quneitra provinces, not in the
conference rooms of Geneva and Vienna.
The aim of the regime and its Russian and Iranian allies at present
appears to be to destroy the non-Islamic State Sunni Arab rebellion
against Assad. This would have the consequence of leaving only three
effective protagonists in the war in Syria – Assad, Islamic State and the
Kurds in the north.
Russia hopes to lure Syrian Kurds
away from their alliance with the US.
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Moscow is engaged at the moment in the energetic courting of the
Kurds. Should Russia, after defeating the non-Islamic State rebels,
succeed in tempting the Syrian Kurds away from their current alliance
with the US, this would leave Moscow the effective master of the
universally approved war against Islamic State in Syria.
Assad, who was facing possible defeat prior to the Russian
intervention in September 2015, would be entirely dependent on Moscow and
to a lesser extent Tehran for his survival. This would make the Russians
and Iranians the decisive element in Syria's future.
The defeat of the non-Islamic State Sunni Arab rebellion is the first
stage in this strategy. The main regime and Russian efforts are currently
directed toward the remaining heartland of the rebellion in northwest
Syria.
But Assad and his allies also appear intent on delivering a death blow
to the revolt in the place it was born – Deraa province in the south and
its environs. This, incidentally, if achieved in its entirety, would
bring Hezbollah and Iran to the area east of Quneitra crossing, facing
the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights. It is not by any means
certain that the regime will achieve this aim in total. But as of now,
Assad and his friends are moving forward.
The first stage following the Russian intervention, and achieved in
the dying months of 2015, was to end the rebel threat to the regime
enclave in Latakia province. There is no further prospect of the rebels
finding their way into the populated areas of this province. The regime
has recaptured 35 villages in the northern Latakia countryside.
This achieved, the main fulcrum of the current effort is Aleppo
province. Aleppo is the capital of Syria's north. The rebellion's arrival
in this city in the late summer of 2012 signaled the point at which it
first began to pose a real threat to Assad.
This week, the regime, its Iran-mustered Shi'a militia supporters and
Russian air power succeeded in breaking the link between the border town
of Azaz and rebel-held eastern Aleppo. This reporter traveled these rebel
supply routes from the border when they were first carved out in 2012.
They were vital to the maintenance of the rebellion's positions in
Aleppo. There is a single link remaining between Turkey and eastern
Aleppo – via Idlib province.
The direction of the war is
currently in the regime's favor.
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But the rebel situation is rapidly deteriorating. The regime also
broke a two-year siege on two Shi'ite towns, Nubul and Zahra.
The rebels rushed all available personnel and resources to defend
these supply routes. Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaida branch in Syria, sent
a convoy of 750 fighters to the area. This proved insufficient.
Further south, a recent regime offensive in Deraa province led to the
recapture of the town of Sheikh Maskin, which again cuts the rebels off
from key supply lines in a province they once dominated.
So the direction of the war is currently in the regime's favor.
This is due to the Russian air intervention and to Iran's provision of
ground fighters from a variety of regional populations aligned with it.
The pattern of events on the ground had a predictable effect on the
diplomacy in Geneva.
Any attempt by the regime to claw
back the entirety of Syria will lead to overstretch.
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All this does not, however, necessarily presage imminent and
comprehensive regime and Russian success on the ground. Syrian opposition
sources note that the pendulum of the war has swung back and forth many
times in the course of the last four years. They hope that fresh efforts
from Ankara, Qatar and Saudi Arabia will help to stem regime gains in the
weeks ahead.
Perhaps more fundamentally, any attempt by the regime to claw back the
entirety of Sunni Arab majority areas or Kurdish majority areas of Syria
would lead to the same situation the regime faced in 2012 – namely,
overstretch and insufficient forces to effectively hold areas conquered.
But as of now, thanks to the Russian intervention, prospects for rebel
victory have been averted and the Assad regime, with its allies, is on
the march once more.
Comprehensive eclipse for the non-Islamic State Sunni Arab rebel
groups is no longer an impossibility somewhere down the line. This
reality at present precludes progress toward a diplomatic solution.
As an old Russian proverb has it: When the guns roar, the muses are
silent.
Jonathan Spyer is director of the
Rubin Center for Research in International Affairs and a fellow at the
Middle East Forum.
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