Al-Monitor Congress Pulse expands Syria, Russia coverage
17.3.2014 – Al-Monitor’s Congress Pulse got off to a fast start this week, as Julian Pecquet broke the news on March 14 about a new resolution sponsored by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward Royce, R-Calif., and ranking member Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., calling on the Obama administration to develop a new US strategy for Syria in 60 days and withdraw recognition of the Syrian government, “unless and until the [Bashar al-] Assad regime and its supporting militias discontinue their barbaric slaughter, systematic starvation and other grave human rights abuses, and are granted full and unfettered access for deliveries of humanitarian assistance, even as other negotiations with Assad’s regime may continue.”
The introduction of the resolution, which even if it passed in its current form would not be binding on the Obama administration, came on the same day as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the Syrian political process as being “in crisis.”
Ban called for those countries sending foreign fighters and arms into Syria to cease immediately. He also dispatched Joint Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi to Iran, which Ban said could play an “important role” with the Syrian government to re-energize the Geneva diplomatic track.
This column, as far back as December 2012, has regularly stressed the centrality of Iran to any political solution in Syria and anticipated that the ultimate “endgame” in Syria would involve elections, preferably after a cease-fire. Elections are constitutionally mandated to take place 60 to 90 days before Assad’s term ends on July 17 of this year.
The election timeline has created a new urgency for diplomacy, as Brahimi said this week that elections would make it “very difficult” for the Syrian opposition to move ahead with the Geneva process. This statement earned Brahimi a rebuke from Syria’s UN ambassador, Bashar al-Jaafari, for meddling in Syria’s affairs.
On Jan. 12, prior to the Geneva II talks, this column foresaw a “new pulse” of Geneva II, a “trend toward humanitarian and counterterrorism cooperation [which] could, and probably will, provide the next phase of what we now call the Geneva process, overtaking stalemated discussions on a political transition.”
Barbara Slavin reported this week that US Director of Central Intelligence John Brennan, in an unusual on-the-record appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations, “said the United States was concerned that Syria under Assad has become a magnet for extremists and terrorists who might use the country as a springboard for attacks outside the region. The jihadist threat, Brennan said, has been the focus of his discussions with regional counterparts that the United States is counting on to help blunt this threat.”
On March 5, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein-Amir Abdollahian laid out Iran’s four-part strategy for a political solution in Syria in an exclusive article for Al-Monitor. Abdollahian wrote that Iran advocates a political process ultimately “based on the direct vote and will of the Syrian people. An outside decision for Syria can only be legitimate and credible if it is directly validated by the people of Syria,” while also supporting national and international diplomacy and immediate steps to address the humanitarian crisis and the rise of takfiri terrorist groups.
Laura Rozen wrote that two former Obama administration officials, including one who has been involved in track II conversations with Iranians, believe that there is an opening for a US-Iran dialogue on Syria, using the humanitarian crisis as an immediate hook.
Edward Dark (pseudonym) continued his unmatched reporting this week describing how the Syrian government has successfully recruited Sunnis from Aleppo into pro-regime militias, thus muddying simple sectarian narratives about the course of the conflict, and offering unusual insight into what he describes as the “mess that has become the Syrian civil war,” where “the lines of conflict are blurred and ill-defined.”
Al-Monitor’s coverage of Syria this week included field reports from Syria’s borders. Brenda Stoter writes movingly from Reyhanli about the humiliation and exploitation of Syrian female refugees in Turkey and the accounts of Syrians who have lived through the barrel-bombing campaigns by Syrian government forces. Inna Lazareva visited the Western Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, Israel, near the Lebanese and Syrian borders, where Israeli doctors treat Syrian children injured in the Syria war.
Al-Monitor also provided translations of Tareq al-Abed’s fascinating interviews in As-Safir with some of the original street agitators in the Syrian uprising, who bemoan the effects of the militarization and role of foreign powers in the course of the revolution, and from Al-Hayat, an article about the dark comedy of YouTube videos about the Syria conflict that have gained wide popularity.
John Rosenthal wrote this week that the Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham, a member of the Islamic Front, has secured the release of 9/11 plotter and alleged al-Qaeda core member Mohammed Haydar Zammar in a recent prisoner exchange.
Michel Kilo, one of the leading figures in the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, wrote an exclusive piece for Al-Monitor that Russia’s actions at the Geneva II conference — which he describes as obstructive based upon Moscow’s support for the Assad government, and in Ukraine — have complicated the position of the Syrian opposition and raised new questions about the prospects for further negotiations with Assad’s government. Kilo concludes, “All Syrians are asking this question, and global public opinion is widely and angrily condemning the daily murders against the Syrian people — yet, no one does anything to stop them!”
The implications of the crisis in Ukraine for the Middle East was the topic of the second Al-Monitor/PBS Newshour “Trendlines” web special this week.
Asked about the impact of the Ukraine crisis on Iran’s strategy, Nasser Hadian, a professor at Tehran University, said on “Trendlines” that the effect would be “if not zero, very close to zero impact.”
Other Iranian contributors to Al-Monitor this week examined the effect of Ukraine on Iran’s strategy.
Seyyed Hossein Mousavian writes that if the course of events in Ukraine lead to even further confrontation between Russia and the West, we could see Russia develop its eastern flank resulting in even more intensive cooperation among Moscow, Tehran and Beijing.
Kayhan Barzegar writes from Tehran that while Iran will pursue “active neutrality” in Ukraine, Moscow-Tehran ties will be unaffected — or may even deepen — over shared interests in achieving a comprehensive nuclear agreement and a political solution in Syria.
An anonymous contributor in Iran has a different take, that hard-liners in the Iranian leadership see developments in Ukraine in the context of the 2009 Green Movement in Iran, and that this will encourage stronger ties with Russia and a tougher stand toward the United States and the West.
Concern about the possible negative consequences of the Ukraine crisis for US-Russia cooperation in the Middle Est was on the minds of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in passing an aid bill for Ukraine this week.
“Senators of both parties told Al-Monitor that the sanctions are tailored to deal with Russia’s intervention in Crimea and should not preclude cooperation on Iran, Syria or other issues,” Julian Pecquet reported.
“That’s why we narrowed it to Ukraine involvement only,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., ranking Republican on the panel, told Pecquet. “It ties the two together in an appropriate way.”
Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, who opposed the bill, said, “Both we and the Russians have a strong interest in curbing terrorist activities. We have worked together in the past [on the Boston bombing, for example], and I suspect that even with the sanctions those things are going to continue.” He added, “The Russians aren’t anxious to have chemical weapons floating around, because the same people that get ahold of those could use them against us or against them in a terrorist capacity. We have a common interest in that regard. And those agencies — notwithstanding sanctions — would probably continue to work together.”