Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and his Russian backers are close to achieving a lasting victory in the Syrian civil war, according to Senate Republicans, despite Secretary of State John Kerry’s ongoing effort to negotiate a pause in the fighting.
“Ah, again! Five-star hotel, again they will meet and discuss the latest disaster inflicted by the Russians and Bashar Assad while we make statements,” a sarcastic Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., told the Washington Examiner. “Yes, I really believe that that is an important meeting.”
Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are set to meet in Geneva for another round of negotiations over the fighting in Aleppo, a crucial city where rebel-held neighborhoods have become the scene of heavy bombardment from Russia and the Assad regime. Kerry’s negotiations have been stymied, his critics say, by the Obama administration’s missteps — but the clock has become another enemy, as the outgoing secretary of state will yield to President-elect Trump’s administration in a matter of weeks.
“His credibility is all gone,” said Wyoming Republican John Barrasso, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
But Kerry isn’t the only problem, as some lawmakers are losing their patience with Lavrov, as McCain made clear.
“Lavrov is full of shit, okay?” the 2008 Republican presidential nominee said. “Lavrov will lie. Lavrov will do Putin’s bidding. Lavrov is an old KGB agent that is a bully and a thug, and Lavrov will carry out Putin’s wishes, if he wants to keep his job, and there will be no result. Why? Because there is no penalty for Russian misbehavior.”
In McCain’s judgement, Kerry’s negotiating power disappeared when President Obama chose not to fulfill his promise to carry out airstrikes when the Assad regime used chemical weapons against the rebels.
“[Former Secretary of State] George Shultz, the smartest guy I ever knew, said policy has to be backed up with the threat of force,” he said. “They know we’re not going to do anything in response to what they do. They can kill as many people as they want, they can drop the barrel bombs, they could even go back to chemical weapons. We’re not going to do anything.”
Kerry has negotiated with the Russians at critical moments in the Syrian crisis, only to have the agreement broken or undermined. When the Obama administration debated attacking the Assad regime, Kerry and Lavrov cut a deal that kept the U.S. military out of Syria in exchange for the destruction of Assad’s chemical weapons stockpiles.
“We struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out,” Kerry said in 2014. And yet, a year later, the former Massachusetts senator found himself condemning the Assad regime for chlorine gas attacks.
More recently, Kerry attempted to broker a ceasefire that would have provided a non-violent means of relieving besieged rebels in Aleppo. In exchange, the United States would have cooperated with the Russian military in attacks on jihadist groups in Syria — a significant policy concession, as it would have strengthened Assad and breached President Obama’s attempt to isolate Putin internationally following Russian’s annexation of Crimea.
But even that prize couldn’t prevent pro-regime forces from attacking a UN aid convoy.
Kerry himself confessed to weariness with the negotiating process, which he had suspended in the wake of pro-regime attacks on the aid convoy and other civilian targets. Kerry broke off the talks in an attempt to pressure Russia into taking “concrete steps” to avert attacks on civilians, but he returned to the table when it became clear that Russia and the Assad regime were only escalating the bombardment of Aleppo.
“I know people are tired of these meetings. I’m tired of these meetings,” Kerry told State Department staff at the U.S. Embassy in Paris on Friday. “And people are sort of, ‘Oh, another meeting. Okay. This one will end the same way the other one did.’ I get it, folks. I’m not born yesterday. But what am I supposed to do? Go home and have a nice weekend in Massachusetts while people are dying? Sit there in Washington and do nothing? That’s not the way you do business.”
Meanwhile, Russia has continued to bomb Aleppo in order to help Assad recapture the city. “After a humanitarian pause, [the strikes] have resumed and will continue for as long as the bandits are still in Aleppo,” Lavrov said Friday in Germany, according to Voice of America.
Lavrov has described the latest negotiations as a discussion of an orderly withdrawal of rebels from Aleppo, but the State Department described them as another push for a ceasefire, however temporary.
“Our immediate goal is to stop the violence, get a sustainable pause in the fighting,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Friday. “That’s obviously the most urgent need here. If we can get beyond that where we can look at other aspects of putting in place a more credible ceasefire, of allowing safe passage for some of the moderate opposition, those are all things we can discuss. But the immediate, urgent need is an end to the fighting.”
A ceasefire won’t happen until Assad and Russia control Aleppo, a victory that will be hastened by such a safe passage agreement, according to McCain. “As soon as Bashar Assad has taken all of Aleppo, of course he will agree to a cease fire and humanitarian aid coming in,” the Arizona Republican said.
Toner reiterated the State Department’s assessment that “even if Aleppo does fall, it’s not going to end the conflict,” but McCain — who has long argued that the United States has the ability to salvage victory for the moderate rebels — said that’s incorrect. “No one believes that once [Assad] regains Aleppo, that the moderate forces have a real chance of overthrowing Bashar Assad,” he said.
And that will be a major win for Russia, delivering “a significant advantage for a country that didn’t have anything to do, had no role whatsoever in the Middle East two years ago, three years ago,” McCain added.
