Is Aleppo the beginning of the end for Syria’s opposition and regime?

Even before the start of the battle for Aleppo, the Syrian crisis had entered a post-political solution phase; it had already gone beyond the diplomatic and political stages. The Vienna agreement had undermined the Geneva statement, and the sterile meetings between the US secretary of state and Russian foreign minister had bypassed Vienna and its goals. The process was a waste of time.

As he approaches the end of his time at the State Department, Secretary of State John Kerry deserves praise for his activity and fortitude, but not for the outcomes. His counterpart Sergey Lavrov outmaneuvered him. While Kerry continues to stress that the solution in Syria will not be down to the military, he knows that everyone else knows that the solution did not need the military deployments in the Levant and the Mediterranean coast. He knows too that what is happening on the ground, especially in Aleppo, contradicts his assertion.

Russia’s intervention in 2015 turned the landscape upside down. The battle for Aleppo will change things once more, but this time quite radically. Moscow does indeed seek a truce in the city. It seeks to relieve itself of the burden of the political and media condemnation of what its troops, the Syrian army and the Iranian militias are doing. It is in a hurry to take some aid to the eastern neighbourhoods of Aleppo before next Saturday’s Paris meeting of the “Friends of Syria” group.

Such humanitarian concern does not, of course, reflect the essence of Russian policy. It wanted to lay siege to Aleppo only to use it as a bargaining chip with the Obama administration. Washington, though, wasn’t interested in bartering. Obama’s positions were clear right from the start of the crisis. He expressed this explicitly when he said that the United States will not enter into any confrontation with Russia in Syria and will not go to war for the simple reason that it is of no importance to Washington. That’s why Russian President Vladimir Putin rushed into action in order to return Aleppo to the embrace of the regime at any cost and notwithstanding any objections.

Putin aims to create new realities and force them on the incoming Trump administration, which will inherit a complicated legacy in the Middle East. The Russian president’s apparent relief upon hearing the US president-elect’s statements should not be taken at face value, given that Trump’s choice as Defence Secretary is retired US Marine Corps General James “Mad Dog” Mattis. This is the man who resigned three years ago in protest at Obama’s stance on Syria; who called in 2012 for the US to arm the Syrian opposition to bring down President Bashar Al-Assad; and who proposed to fight both Iran and Daesh, although he did support the nuclear deal with Tehran.

Mattis has criticised the decline of US influence in the Middle East, so “Mad Dog” may well oppose any concord with the Kremlin called for by his new boss in the White House. He may also revive the conflict with the Iranians, who are uneasy about the decision by the US Congress to renew sanctions. Trump himself, meanwhile, has been threatening to reopen the nuclear agreement file. All of this will hinder Moscow’s strategy to build a wide coalition in the region with the aim of restoring its Soviet-era role as an international power-broker. In a best-case scenario, relations between the Kremlin and the new White House will witness a period of cooperation and conflict depending on the issue in question between the two sides, of which there are many, starting with Ukraine and sanctions; they certainly do not begin and end with Syria.

It has always been clear that Moscow would not allow regime change in Damascus. Its objective right from the start of its intervention has been to establish a solid presence in Syria, with a base from which to serve its regional and international interests; it has accomplished this.

Even as it shows some willingness to cooperate in order to resolve Aleppo’s problems, Russia has not concealed its desire to cleanse the city of all armed elements in exactly the same way that Dariya was cleansed. It proposed opening-up escape routes for the fighters, especially those belonging to Fateh Al-Sham (Al-Nusrah Front)). However, the factions were unwilling to cooperate because they felt that Moscow was just seeking to enable the regime to regain the capital of the north.

In the meantime, negotiations are taking place with Russian officials in Ankara to secure the departure of Nusrah elements from the city in exchange for stopping the war. However, what Russia offered months ago has already been overtaken by time. What is required now is the departure of everyone.

The factions and the political opposition have stalled in their response to the challenge posed by the Russian intervention. They did not know how to modify or unify their political discourse and how to unite the ranks of the fighters. What is feared now is that the voices of the civilians trapped under the shelling amid the destruction will grow louder in demanding the departure of all the fighters from Aleppo to save the city from complete devastation. Even the formation of an “Aleppo Army” did not thrill Lavrov, who considered it as a “new manoeuvre” pursued by Fateh Al-Sham.

There is no question that President Putin has managed the conflict in Syria quite well. He flirted with the Kurds in Syria and expressed readiness to empathise with their demands. He also secured good coordination with Israel as well as with Jordan, which now controls the Syrian factions active in the south. The former KGB officer also restored relations with Turkey, which in turn controls the factions which are active in northern Syria. It is, therefore, worth pointing out that relative calm prevails on all the other fronts while Aleppo is still being subjected to such a scorching fire.

Turkey used to reassure certain strands of the opposition about the fate of Aleppo, yet it now seems to be content with a narrow strip in the north to stem the expansion of the Kurds beyond the west bank of the Euphrates. So far, Turkish troops have not even moved in the direction of Minbij despite the repeated threats and promises that have been made. Even the city of Al-Bab, which is being approached by the Free Syrian Army, may slam its doors shut in the face of the Turkish forces to prevent them from taking it. The recent air strike launched by the Syrian air force against these troops may well have been an explicit message to this end from Russia. It has become very clear that Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan are playing the same game and are merely exchanging roles. Each is using his relationship with the other as a bargaining chip to blackmail and pressure the US, Europe and NATO.

Indeed, Turkey’s president did not hesitate to threaten to open his country’s borders to the waves of migrants heading for Europe. He also warned that his country had alternatives to membership of the European Union. Erdogan suggested, for example, that Turkey could join the “Shanghai Cooperation Organisation” alongside China, Russia and the central Asian republics. Putin, meanwhile, has been keeping the relationship with the US at a minimum functional level following the Eurasian integration project. He has, instead, been going to China, India and Japan. In the end, he seeks an effective contribution to the building of the new world order, which he regretted was not born stable following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

The new tsar has succeeded in crouching over the heart of Syria — or rather over useful Syria — extending his reach to his partners in the north and south, and to the west and the border with Lebanon. He was the one who, in the beginning of the crisis, used to ask some of his guests or his hosts alike whether they thought that President Assad would be content with this Syria and its coastal heart. Thus, the opposition, both political and military, had no other option but to search for a different strategy. It did not succeed in its confrontation with the regime, nor in reinforcing the slogan of the civil state until the sectarian and ethnic wars became widespread. Nor did it succeed in building a structure that is independent of its many “friends” within and beyond the government in Damascus.

The regime did well in playing the “terrorism” card, but although it started to win the voices of foreign leaders from President-elect Trump to French presidential candidate François Fillon, it lost the power of effective decision-making, both politically and militarily. This has now become the prerogative of Moscow, along with Iran. The opposition is left with nothing apart from accepting Aleppo’s fate: this will either be another Grozny and total destruction, or a Beirut besieged and forced to be rid of the remaining opposition elements, who will be sent into exile, as the PLO was pushed out of the Lebanese capital by the Israelis. Can the Syrian opposition, which has not been able to bring down the regime for a thousand reasons, resist Russian and Iranian troops that are equipped with all kinds of heavy weapons?

The challenge is huge. Throughout history, many revolutions with just causes have failed, whereas others succeeded because they knew how to modify their strategies on the political and military battlefields. When the opposition surrenders command to the partners and friends overseas, and when its political and military efforts are wasted, this simply means that it is incapable of resisting or objecting to dictated solutions or the deals done elsewhere. Aleppo may well be the beginning of the end for the Syrian opposition, and possibly even the regime as well.

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