Syria’s civil war is largely over.
President Bashar al Assad, bailed out by Russia and Iran after having ceded nearly half the country to anti-government rebel groups in 2014, is living comfortably in the presidential palace. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Bahrain, nations that once called for Assad’s exit or helped fund an insurgency against his rule, are now trying to bring him back into the regional fold.
The humanitarian situation in Syria, however, is still abysmal. While Assad controls most of the country now, the northwestern province of Idlib remains outside his remit. Governed by Hayat Tahrir al Sham, a onetime al Qaeda affiliate, the province is bursting with over 4 million Syrians. Many of these people are refugees who were deliberately relocated from the Damascus suburbs, Aleppo, Homs, and Hama after aggressive Russian and Syrian government operations. Idlib, in effect, is a state within a state, and its residents are clustered in an assortment of camps, apartments and other dwellings. Were it not for a U.N. aid program based in Turkey that ships food, medical equipment, and other essentials into Syria, starvation would be rampant.
Originally authorized by the U.N. Security Council in 2014, the aid operation was designed to provide basic supplies to millions of Syrians outside of government control. The program was considered so necessary that even Russia, Assad’s most important backer on the Security Council, endorsed it. But as the Syrian government notched wins on the battlefield, the Russians slowly chipped away at cross-border deliveries. Four different routes have now been condensed to one, and it took significant diplomatic effort from the Biden administration last July to extend the mission for another 12 months.
Now, those 12 months are over.
On Thursday morning, the Security Council will deliberate on yet another yearlong extension. Every U.N. official involved with the operation testifies to its importance. More than 4,600 aid trucks have crossed the Turkey-Syria border so far this year, assisting 2.4 million Syrians. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield traveled to the border region last month, a trip designed in part to put pressure on the Russians to allow the mission to continue. “It is our hope that the Russians will support this resolution,” Thomas-Greenfield said during a short press conference at the time. “They did last year. They know the importance of this program, that it is feeding millions of people and keeping millions of people alive in Syria, and the Syrian government knows how important this is.”
But last year was a totally different time with a totally different context. Back then, there was still a semblance of cooperation between Washington and Moscow, and President Joe Biden remained cautiously optimistic that a businesslike relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin was still possible.
To put it mildly, 2022 makes 2021 look like a love fest. The U.S.-Russia relationship is perhaps worse off today than it was in the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan blasted the Soviet Union as the “evil empire” and the Soviets were sending the Sandinista government in Nicaragua oil and military equipment. Having invaded Ukraine, Russia is now the most sanctioned country in the world. Russian troops are being killed in Ukraine by U.S.-made weapons on a daily basis. Arms control talks are suspended indefinitely. Russia, in short, doesn’t have much of an incentive to cooperate on any U.S.-supported initiatives at the U.N. — even if it means sending millions of Syrians into hunger.
Tomorrow’s vote will be a critical test: Can the world’s big powers still come to a consensus on some policy issues even if they vehemently disagree on others? Or are those differences too large and emotionally toxic to overcome?
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
