State Department insists ‘nobody’s being played’ by Russia

“Nobody’s being played here,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters. But that doesn’t mean that we’re not willing to continue, to a point — and so far we’re still in the mode of continuing to try to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict.”

Russian and Assad regime forces enjoyed a week of reduced attacks from U.S.-backed rebels, due to a ceasefire pact that Kerry negotiated with the hope of providing humanitarian aid to the besieged city of Aleppo. The agreement was shattered by Russian-backed airstrikes against aid workers, followed by days of devastating attacks on Aleppo.

That chain of events prompted Kerry’s former colleagues in the Senate, even members of President Obama’s party, to think he was manipulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government.

“I think that the temporary truce that was created, from the Russian perspective, never had a real calculation to actually effectuate the results of what Secretary Kerry intended,” Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said Thursday during a Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Syria.

“But it was to give Assad the ability to re-arm and reorganize.”

On Wednesday, Kerry threatened to suspend talks with Russia unless their behavior in Syria changed “immediately,” but he had not carried out that threat on Thursday despite the lack of improvement.

“He’s not going to apologize for going the extra mile [to find a diplomatic solution],” Kirby said. “But any suggestion thats he’s sitting there at the table blindly taking everything the Russians say on faith or that he is naive to what Russia might consider its own geopolitical interests in Syria is not true, it’s false.”

Putin sees Assad as a critical client in the Middle East, giving Russia an important foothold in the region. Consequently, they’ve been willing to expend military power propping up Assad, whereas the United States has not been willing to overthrow him; that has left Kerry in the unenviable position of negotiating with Russia without having direct leverage to force them to change their policies if talks break down.

“He’s the nation’s chief diplomat; his job, his whole reason for being, is to try to arrive at solutions through diplomacy,” Kirby said. “He’s also been very honest that even as the nation’s chief diplomat, his patience isn’t limitless.”