Syria’s Bashar al Assad shows no willingness to compromise

As the Syria peace talks resume next week,
President Bashar al-Assad, backed militarily by Iran
and Russia, shows no willingness to compromise,
much less step aside to allow a transition Western
powers claim is the solution to the conflict.
Threatened by rebel advances last year, Assad is
now pumped up with confidence after Russian air
strikes reversed the tide and enabled his army to
recover lost ground from Sunni insurgents as well
as the jihadis of Islamic State .

While Syria experts doubt he can recapture the
whole country without an unlikely full-scale ground
intervention by Russia and Iran, they also doubt
President Vladimir Putin will force him out – unless
there is a clear path to stability, which could take
years.
Instead, Russia’s dramatic military intervention last
September — after five years of inconclusive
fighting between Assad and fragmented rebel
groups mostly from Syria’s Sunni majority — has
tilted the balance of power in his favour and given
him the upper hand at the talks in Geneva.
The main target of the Russian air force
bombardment was mainstream and Islamist forces
that launched an offensive last summer. Only
recently have Russia and Syrian forces taken the
fight to Islamic State, notably by recapturing
Palmyra, the Graeco-Roman city the jihadis overran
last year.
The Russian campaign, backed by Iran’s
Revolutionary Guards and Shi’ite militia such as
Lebanon’s Hezbollah, has for now outmatched the
rebels, including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front
and units supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey,
and the United States.

REBELS LOSE MOMENTUM
Dealing with those groups rather than Islamic State
seemed the main aim of Moscow’s intervention,
analysts say. “The Russian intervention
fundamentally reshaped the Syrian conflict,” says
Kheder Khaddour from the Carnegie Middle East
Center. “The momentum of the rebels does not
exist any more.”
Putin, diplomats say, weakened the opposition to
coax it into accepting a settlement on Russian and
Syrian terms. That does not mean the “transitional
authority” sought by the U.S. and its allies, but a
government expanded to include elements of the
opposition, with Assad at its head for the
immediate future.
Russia still wants Assad to lead the transition to the
elections, while the opposition and its regional
allies, including the United States and Europe, insist
he should step down. So far no compromises are in
sight.
“We need things to advance in the coming weeks. If
the political process is just about putting a few
opposition people in nominal cabinet posts then
this isn’t going to go very far,” said a European
diplomat close to the talks.
“If there isn’t a political transition the civil war will
continue and Islamic State will benefit from it,” he
said.
Fawaz Gerges, author of ISIS: A History, said: “At
this point the Russians have the upper hand in
dictating a solution. The Americans are playing on
Russia’s playing field.”

UNCERTAINTY
His judgment is underlined by Sergei Lavrov,
Russia’s foreign minister, who boasted in a recent
interview that “the Americans understand they can
do nothing without Russia. They can no longer
solve serious problems on their own”.
Yet uncertainty surrounds Moscow’s intentions,
after Putin suddenly withdrew part of his forces
from Syria last month. That led to speculation
among Assad’s enemies that Russia was
contemplating whether to ditch Assad – an outcome
many Syria watchers find highly improbable.
“The key issue remains when and if the Russians will
act to facilitate this transition. It’s unclear, and we
get the feeling that the recent talks didn’t change
much in the Russian position,” the European
diplomat said.
“I don’t think the upcoming round will reach any
real decisions on the political process, he added.
Gerges says the partial pull-back sent a message to
the Americans that Russia is a rational and credible
force that is interested in a diplomatic settlement.
It was also intended as a jolt to Assad, by then so
emboldened at the way Russia and Iran had
transformed his weak position that he was
announcing plans to recapture all of Syria.
“The message to the Assad regime was that Russia
doesn’t play by Assad’s playbook, it doesn’t want to
get down in Syria’s quagmire (but) wants to cut its
losses,” Gerges believes.
But it is far from clear that Assad interprets these
messages the same way.
Last month, he dismissed any notion of a transition
from the current structure, as agreed by
international powers, calling instead for “national
unity” solution with some elements of the
opposition joining the present government.
“The transition period must be under the current
constitution, and we will move on to the new
constitution after the Syrian people vote for it,”
Assad told Russia’s Sputnik news agency.

ASSAD “WILL NOT GO QUIETLY”
Faisal al-Yafai, a leading commentator from the
United Arab Emirates, says Russia “played its cards
in Syria very cleverly, but miscalculated in one
aspect”.
“They assumed that once the (Assad) regime felt
secure, it would be more willing to negotiate. In
fact, the opposite has happened”. “There’s a limit to
the pressure that Russia can exert on Assad. Assad
absolutely will not go quietly — and certainly not
when there is no real alternative to him, even
within the regime,” says al-Yafai.
Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria
and now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute
in Washington, agrees that Russia may not be able
to compel Assad to go.
The secret police backbone of Assad’s rule remains
intact, he says, and “Assad seems confident again,
after his much more sober tone last summer. The
Russians may have helped him too much, such that
Assad can maintain control of key cities and roads
for a long time”.
Ford also drew attention to the competition over
Syria between Russia and Iran, Assad’s two main
allies. Moscow’s emphasis is on its traditional
relations with the Syrian military establishment,
while Tehran focusses on the militia network it built
with Hezbollah to shore up the regime.
“Assad is plenty smart to know how to play one
country off against the other. I am not even sure
Russia would test its heavy pressure capacity
against that of Iran in Damascus. The Russians
know they might lose”, Ford said.
Russia’s involvement in Syria has given it greater
insight into the structure of the Assad rule,
constructed to intermesh the Assad family and
allies from its minority Alawite community with the
security services and military command.

ASSAD BUOYANT
Khaddour from Carnegie says Russia now realises
the circumstances for a transition do not yet exist,
because removing Assad might unravel the whole
power structure.
“There is a problem within the regime. It is not
capable of producing an alternative to itself
internally,” says Khaddour, adding the only
concession it has made – simply to turn up in
Geneva – was the result of Russian pressure.
With limits to Russian and Iranian influence on a
newly buoyant Assad, few believe the Geneva talks
will bring peace. “If the Russians felt it was time for
a solution they would have reached an
understanding with the Americans to give up on
Assad without giving up on the Alawites. The
circumstances are not ripe yet for a solution,” says
Sarkis Naoum, a leading commentator on Syria.
The diplomat added: “The fundamental question is
still whether the Russians are serious and want this
to happen.” “Nobody knows what’s in their mind
and I’m not sure they even know.”