The Obama administration this week all but admitted that it’s out of ideas on how to influence the outcome of Syria’s civil war, and was reduced on Thursday to blaming Russia and Syria for imposing a military solution after the U.S. insisted that only a political solution was possible.
But a key House lawmaker says there are still concrete steps the U.S. can take to mitigate the violence in Syria, and ideas that haven’t been tried yet.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., says one of his ideas involves sanctions that make it tougher for Syria to keep carrying out the violence it has brought upon its own people. The other involves developing a plan for peace that moves away from simply hoping Russia will cooperate, and instead recognizes Russia’s interests in the region and gives Russia a reason cooperate.
Royce has pushed for a tougher sanctions regime against Syria for the last several months, but has been stymied by the Obama administration. It’s been especially frustrating for Congress, since the White House has dismissed sanctions as an option even as it claims that no one has offered any alternatives to its unsuccessful diplomatic effort.
The White House put forward that same argument again on Thursday, even in the face of the fall of Aleppo. “No one has put forward an alternative suggestion for what we should now be doing,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Royce rejects that argument, and says the November House vote in favor of his bill would give the U.S. new tools to put more pressure on Syria.
“It would impose new sanctions on any parties that continue to do business with the Assad regime,” Royce said in November after the House passed his bill in an easy voice vote. “We want to go after the things driving the war machine: money, airplanes, spare parts, oil, the military supply chain. And yes, we want to go after Assad’s partners in violence.”
The Senate never took up the bill, in part because of pressure from the Obama administration, but it’s the kind of idea that could be revisited under the Trump administration next year.
A second part of Royce’s plan involves finding a way to deal with Russia, the country that has thwarted the Obama administration’s diplomatic effort for more than a year.
Working with Russia has been a major problem for Obama’s team, and on Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry could only ask other countries to put pressure on Russia in some undefined way.
“I call on the entire international community to join in exerting pressure on all parties to go forward with the process that has been laid out for some period of time now, to abide by the cessation of hostilities, and to bring the killing and the cruelty,” Kerry said.
But this week, Royce laid out a more specific plan that starts with getting Russia to realize that it should work with the U.S. in order to oust elements in Syria that could pose a threat to southern regions of Russia. One of those elements are Iranian soldiers who are fighting in Syria.
“My advice would be to make part of the focus here getting the Iranian militia out of Syria right now, because we’re hearing reports of regime forces and the Shia militia going door-to-door, executing everyone they find, women and children,” Royce said during a Wednesday radio interview in Los Angeles.
If those elements remain, Royce argues, they could threaten Russia. And raising that possibility with Russia has the potential to give the U.S. and Russia a common interest, and finally, a reason to cooperate.
“I think that to begin the rebuilding, there has to be a dialogue between the United States and Moscow about getting these Iranian militia and getting Hezbollah out of the country, now,” he said.
“The discussion we need to have with President Putin is one about what the future is going to be, especially for southern Russia, with the attacks that are ongoing and increasing radicalization across that region,” Royce added. Those attacks aren’t in Russia’s interest, he said, and the U.S. can help Russia realize that.
“They’ve got the wrong approach here, and it’s one that’s going to end up undermining the Russian regime,” he said.
The Obama administration didn’t give any indication Thursday that it was preparing a new strategy for Syria in the roughly four weeks left before President Obama leaves office. But Aleppo’s fall and a new U.S. administration doesn’t signal the end of the problem in Syria.
Republicans and Democrats agree that even after Syria secures Aleppo, there will still be thousands of Syrians around the country at risk of further violence. It’s that risk that will likely prompt Congress to take up both ideas — sanctions, and strategic cooperation with Russia — in 2017.
“At this point, sanctions [and] getting the Shia paramilitary forces out … is about stopping further bloodshed,” said one House GOP aide. “Because the fall of Aleppo will not mark the end of the killing spree.”
“There are an estimated 800-900,000 Syrians outside of Aleppo currently under siege by regime forces,” this aide added.
