The Biden administration is mulling over America’s role in the ongoing conflict in Syria while the US tries to break with wars in the Middle East, but Vladimir Putin’s top diplomat has already been busy winning support for a Syria approach that could establish Russia as a broker of security and power in the region.
The new US administration has yet to say how it plans to deal with Syria, which is now spread over half a dozen military personnel – including US troops – as a result of a war that has killed and displaced millions. The conflict includes al-Qaeda affiliates, Islamic State armed forces and other jihadist groups eager to use Syria as a base.
Russia and Iran intervened to prevent the collapse of Syrian President Bashar Assad, which has carried out chemical attacks, barrel bombs and famine to crush what had begun as a peaceful uprising. The conflict has just entered its 11th year.
Dealing with the war in Syria will test the Biden government’s determination to focus on Asia and not the Middle East. If the United States diminishes its presence, Russia and other hostile American rivals are poised to step in and increase their regional status and resources.
Hence that of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Tour of the Middle East this month.
Lavrov conceded while the foreign minister of a Gulf state who was generally friendly to Washington, the United Arab Emirates, delivered a message consistent with Moscow’s position: US sanctions against Syria’s Russian-backed regime blocked international efforts to rebuild Syria. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said it is time to welcome Syria back to the fold of Arab nations.
In other words, Russia’s message is “the war in Syria is over, Assad has won, Assad will be in power as long as he breathes oxygen,” said Frederic Hof, who served as US Syria’s adviser and envoy in government. -Obama.
Court said there was an unspoken part of the message: Russia intends to be present because “Syria is built from the ashes,” taking advantage of all international reconstruction resources, and positioning itself as the broker to deal with the security threats Syria poses. to master. to the region.
Hof and James F. Jeffrey, a career diplomat under Republican and Democratic governments who served as President Donald Trump’s envoy to Syria, argue for the United States to remain a significant presence in the country, citing Russia’s ambitions.
“If this is the security future of the Middle East, we are all in trouble,” warns Jeffrey. “That’s what Putin and Lavrov are pushing for.”
The Biden administration is considering whether to view Syria as one of America’s top national security concerns.
No sign of it has been shown yet. Notably, where President Joe Biden has identified some other Middle East problems as priorities – including the war in Yemen and Iran’s nuclear program, for which Biden appointed envoys – he and his officials have said and done little publicly about Syria. .
In Congress, Syria is at the heart of a congressional debate on whether or not to reduce or end the authorities given to presidents to carry out military attacks in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
It was the Syrian war that sparked that debate, when President Barack Obama first considered carrying out military strikes there, Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Congress has sidelined itself in some of the most important decisions a country can make.”
One of Biden’s few public mentions of Syria since taking office came last week, when he cited it as one of the international issues that the UN Security Council should do more about.
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the start of the Syrian conflict last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement with European counterparts emphasized the need for humanitarian aid for Syrian civilians and accountability for the Assad regime.
US forces are helping protect an opposition enclave in northeastern Syria, in an area that includes oil and natural gas. During Biden’s campaign last year, Blinken viewed the military role as a “leverage point” in the negotiations on the international treatment of Syria, rather than as an ongoing force.
Spokesmen for the National Security Council and the State Department declined to answer specific questions about Biden’s Syria policy, including whether the government sees the conflict in Syria as a major threat to national security or plans to appoint an envoy.
Biden follows Obama and Trump in his attempt to minimize the United States’ military role in the Middle East and shift the focus of US foreign policy to Asia, where China has become increasingly aggressive.
But the conflicts in the Middle East and the United States’ own strategic plans have a way of pulling Americans back. Biden became the sixth consecutive US president to bomb a target in the Middle East last month, hitting an Iranian-allied militia in Syria that had attacked US and Allied personnel in neighboring Iraq.
Some current and former US Middle East diplomats have argued that Syria does not pose a major security threat to the United States.
Robert S. Ford, an Obama administration ambassador to Syria with years of diplomatic experience in the region, concluded in a State Department article last year that Washington should be committed to withdrawing its troops from northeastern Syria, and that Russia and others must take steps to deal with jihadists. fighters, and use the money of the United States to help the refugees out of the war.
But Hof and Jeffrey, two others dealing with Syria before previous governments, argue against withdrawal.
“If I were an ISIS leader now desperately trying to organize an uprising to get back” in Syria, “I would pray that advice be followed,” Hof said. For the Islamic State group: “If you can have the (Syrian) regime, the Iranians and the Russians as enemies, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
A test of Biden’s government’s intentions looms as Russia tries to use its UN Security Council position to cut off a humanitarian aid route to a part of Syria not controlled by Russia’s backed Syrian government, notes Mona Yacoubian, senior Syria adviser for the American Institute for Peace Think Tank.
Maintaining or strengthening the US footprint in Syria will be important, Yacoubian said – not only as a lever for political negotiations, but also to shape the ground rules for Russia’s presence in the Middle East. And there remain other immediate goals for the international community: to make life “more manageable and less miserable for Syrians,” she said.