Iran has been invited for the first time to the next round of talks on Syria’s future, U.S. and Russian officials confirmed Tuesday, a move likely to deepen bipartisan skepticism in Congress about President Obama’s policy toward dealing with Syrian President Bashar al Assad.
The Associated Press, quoting unnamed U.S. officials, said Tehran had not yet replied to an invitation from Russia to the next round of talks set to start Thursday. In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Iran should be a party to the talks aimed at finding a solution to Syria’s four-year-old civil war.
“I very much count on not just Iran, but also other countries whose absence makes it difficult to speak of the representative nature of this work, being invited to the next round of negotiations,” Lavrov said.
Related Story: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2575003
Iran is a key supporter of Assad’s embattled regime, supplying not only money but combat forces, including those from its Lebanese proxy, the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah militia.
Secretary of State John Kerry left the door open for Iranian participation in the talks on Friday after meetings in Vienna with Lavrov and other diplomats on Syria, but there’s bipartisan opposition to the idea in Congress.
Opponents of Obama’s Syria policy have long been concerned that the president’s refusal to use force against Assad, even though U.S. forces are engaged in an air campaign against the Islamic State in his country, strengthens both Iran’s and the Syrian dictator’s position. The recent military intervention by Russia in Syria on Assad’s behalf has increased that concern.
Those concerns boiled over Tuesday as Senate Armed Services Committee members peppered Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford with questions about why the United States would not confront Assad militarily.
“We hear it said all the time that there is no military solution to this problem, which is a truism. But that, too, is misleading. The real problem is that there can be no diplomatic solution without leverage, and there is a clear military dimension to this problem,” committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said.
“Secretary Kerry can take all the trips he wants to Geneva, but unless the military balance of power changes on the ground, diplomacy will achieve nothing.”
