America decides: the Syrian people must leave, not Assad

America has revealed its choice and biases over Syria: it is saying no to the Syrian people and yes to Bashar Al-Assad; no to Saudi Arabia and Turkey and yes to Russia and Iran. The game of nations and powers supports injustice in Syria. The priority is the fight against terrorism, as they define it, but with a political solution like that being prepared through the Kerry-Lavrov understandings; no one should wonder where extremism comes from, because these understandings are laying the foundations for the new terrorism of the post-Daesh period.

On 23 January, America erased everything that was said by its officials, including Barack Obama, about the Damascus regime that lost its legitimacy, and that Assad must resign as there is no future as president for him. It even crossed out the Geneva statement which no longer exists, as the Russians and Iranians wanted. America dropped the mysteries and delusions that surrounded the Vienna statements, and gave in to Russian interpretations of UN Security Council resolution 2254. The alleged political solution, according to Kerry’s diktats to the opposition, is based on what the regime, its supporters and sympathetic “tame” opposition want, and what the Iranians and Russians want. That was the end result of the Vienna operation which coincided with statements suggesting that America still differs with Russia on the departure of Assad, but Kerry’s meeting with the opposition in Riyadh showed that America and Russia finally agreed that “the Syrian people must leave”.

Thus, there is no solution at all except a call for surrender that will cost more lives and more destruction. What Kerry is proposing to the opposition is the threat of a military takeover, in which the US will not intervene and will not help them to face. America’s non-involvement will be its tacit approval. He had no diplomacy in his speech, but rather a blunt announcement that America had made up its mind and decided on a coup against the Syrian people with no guarantees for them. So there is going to be no political transition, no transitional government, no full power government, no blaming or holding the regime accountable if negotiations fail, and no support for the opposition whether it goes to negotiations or not. All the previous notes do not constitute preconditions, according to the American secretary of state who agreed with his Russian counterpart for negotiations without preconditions. There could be no stranger or more brutal introduction for negotiations that aim to end a bloody conflict as those convened in Geneva about Syria.

For those still wondering about the post-nuclear deal stage and asking if Iran will change, there is a very clear answer: America has changed; America has changed to the point of showing an uglier face than the one it had during its Vietnam War era. It did all that was expected of it, and all the doubts that its allies and friends had about its positions have been realised: the US was never a friend of the Syrian people, but was deceiving them. It was using them as a slogan for negotiating with the Russians. It had no strategy so it adopted Moscow’s strategy. It did so after the scandal of the chemical weapons, and repeated it, continuing to do so despite the boycott. It actually breached that boycott all of a sudden to summon the Russian role to the point that it became a direct intervention, as if it was America’s deputy in Syria.

In the months prior to the Vienna meetings, Washington kept quiet and let the Russians and Iranians tackle their crises on their own. When it intervened, it was to help them and not to oppose them. The Russians and Iranians focused on redirecting the mission of UN Envoy Staffan de Mistura, with the US ignoring the fact that he had already made up his mind and is biased towards the regime, Russia and Iran; and that he is no longer comfortable with what he hears in Riyadh, Ankara or Doha. When Obama expressed his opinion, mocking the opposition, he was aware that de Mistura was about to change the make-up of the opposition that was readily accepted by Russia and Iran in negotiations, depending on long talks he held last spring in Geneva with Syrian committees and individuals. Those talks led to considering the so called opposition to be a very small part of the conflict had it not been for the fighting factions which were at that time taking control of areas originally held by the regime, and that any negotiations must include a wider range of “opposition” to that offered by the coalition or the coordination committee.

Thus, the Russians insisted on air strikes against opposition groups, not just Daesh. They were supposed to take into consideration what it meant for representatives of these factions to be present at the Riyadh conference, where they expressed their will to take part in a political solution, and also expressed the wish of those countries supporting them to end the conflict peacefully. The assassination of Zahran Alosh, a senior official of Jaishul Islam, and other assassinations that followed the conference and continued even while resolution 2254 was being issued, demonstrated that the Russians want to provoke the military opposition to Assad and push it to withdraw from any negotiations; this would leave the political opposition alone and weak, and susceptible to pressure, whether through de Mistura or the Russian conditions of which Kerry stressed US approval.

Since the beginning, Russia, Iran and the Syrian regime have decided that there is no place for logic in the crisis, and the games being played right now are putting negotiations at stake; it is as if the internationalisation of the conflict in Vienna and then the UN Security Council did not move things forward, but maintained the status quo under Assad’s tyranny. In fact, the opposition considered the Russian manoeuvres as a clear recipe for early manipulation of the issue of political transition, with the aim of breaking through the opposition delegates or inventing an alternative opposition, leading to tripartite negotiations; or even bilateral talks between the genuine opposition on one side and the regime and its “tame” opposition on the other. The intention of the Russians, it is believed, was to sabotage the negotiations from the beginning, knowing that the US would not exert pressure on behalf of the opposition but would do everything to satisfy Moscow, either on the pretext of fighting Daesh or something else that would reveal Washington’s real intentions.

It’s becoming clear now that the opposition’s analysis of Russia’s positions was naïve, and it was betting on America being strict, but someone was always saying, “Look for the American-Russian understandings”, a stark warning that there must be a missing link that will appear at a critical point in time. That point was the approaching date of the negotiations. Throughout the previous weeks, Moscow could not possibly have been able to act in this way and be against resolution 2254, as well as commit almost daily massacres against civilians in opposition areas in Syria, and completely cover blockades and barrel bombings, without any American objections. This lack of US intervention is based on understandings that have been agreed between the two sides. There has never been any real difference in the positions of Washington and Moscow towards the fighting factions, or any differentiation between moderate groups and terrorists. Their positions were almost identical at times, as they both used starvation to put pressure on the people and gain concessions from the Syrian opposition before they even began negotiations.

This was Kerry’s mission, in the name of understandings, when he warned the opposition that their only opportunity to gamble and lose in Geneva might lose even more if they were driven by emotions to disable negotiations. The opposition was told that joining negotiations was the lesser of two evils, as they will get a chance to voice their opinions and talk about their visions and needs, and that only their presence can force the regime into negotiations which it dreads and has always evaded. They were told that only then can Washington help them; but if they boycott negotiations, they will be doing the regime a favour and will put an end to any American role that may lessen the severity of current conditions.

The Palestinians were told the same thing in order to get them to negotiate, and they did so even though they were sure that the Americans would let them down, and that’s exactly what happened. However, it is very sad but true that people who are surrounded with injustice from all sides cannot afford to miss any chance to improve matters, even when it looks so obviously like an illusion.

Translated from Alkhaleejonline, 29 January, 2016.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.