MESOP TODAYS INSIDE : BASHAR AL ASSAD WAITING FOR OBAMA

MESOP TODAYS INSIDE : BASHAR AL ASSAD WAITING FOR OBAMA

‘Engaging in Politics, Assad-Style’ (Yezid Sayigh, Carnegie Middle East Center)

“In private, some regime loyalists claim a ‘new moment’ has arrived of regime readiness for meaningful engagement with its Syrian and external interlocutors. But it is merely buying time. The Assad regime has set its eyes on a different goal: securing the restoration of direct political communications with the U.S. and at least tacit U.S. acceptance of the regime’s de facto control over Syria, without making substantive concessions in return. The regime’s calculation is simple: it anticipates that progress in the U.S.-led military campaign against ISIS in Iraq will weaken the organization in northeast Syria, and that the U.S. will then need a local partner to prevent ISIS from regrouping in its Syrian provinces in order to make a comeback in Iraq, as it did 2013-2014.” – — Mary Casey-Baker