Critics of President Obama’s Syria policy say that in depending on the Russians to uphold a fragile cease-fire there, the United States won’t resolve the military and political conflict there any better than it has in eastern Ukraine.
“This is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s pattern — against Georgia, Ukraine and Crimea, and now Syria,” the Joint Baltic American National Committee’s Karl Altau wrote in a February letter to Obama and congressional leaders. The letter was signed by 11 U.S.-based ethnic organizations calling for a stronger response to Russia. “Putin continues to violate the territorial integrity of multiple states in violation of international agreements and United Nations principles,” the letter said. Various cease-fire agreements “all have fallen prey to Russia’s aggression and disingenuousness in international affairs.”
Even humanitarian concerns say Putin is exploiting the supposed lull in fighting.
Russia is just using the cease-fire to take the upper hand with its military effort on behalf of Syrian strongman Bashar Assad, representatives of relief agencies Mercy Corps, Oxfam America and the Syrian American Medical Society charged during an event at the National Press Club on Thursday.
Working with Russia on ending the five-year civil war in Syria has actually hurt the Obama administration’s efforts to see the Minsk agreement that was supposed to bring peace to eastern Ukraine, which does not address Russia’s internationally condemned annexation of Crimea, a former administration official said.
“Nothing has happened to suggest that the Russians are any more willing to give up control of Ukraine than they were before,” former NATO Ambassador Ivo Daalder told Politico last week. “In some ways, Syria became a distraction for us because it led us to work with Russia to try to address the Syrian crisis and to ignore what’s happening in Ukraine.”
Obama addressed the issue with Putin during a Feb. 22 call the White House says Putin requested, but did not get any new assurances.
“President Obama also emphasized the importance of the fulfillment by combined Russian-separatist forces in eastern Ukraine of their obligations under the Minsk agreements, particularly honoring the cease-fire and [granting international monitors] full access to the conflict area including the international border,” the White House said in a statement after the call.
“It’s very important for Russia to live up to its obligations and to make sure the separatists do, and it’s also very important for the Kiev government to undertake its steps,” Secretary of State John Kerry said during a press conference with his German counterpart Feb. 29.
Underscoring the stalemate in Ukraine, Obama was forced on Wednesday to extend his original March 2014 executive order declaring that the Ukrainian conflict represents a national security emergency.
The Syrian cease-fire, like its precursors in Ukraine, was violated as soon as the parties agreed to it Feb. 23.
The Obama administration has downplayed those violations.
“[W]e have seen an overall reduction in airstrikes against Syrian opposition and civilians,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Wednesday. “However, we are concerned about reports that the Syrian regime has engaged in tank and artillery attacks, [which] if confirmed, would be a flagrant violation of the cessation of hostilities.”
Kerry said the U.S. and Russia are monitoring violation reports, but agreed to not overreact.
Although both powers take such reports “very seriously, we do not want to litigate these in a public fashion in the press,” Kerry said. “We want to work to eliminate them, and we have agreed on a process by which we will do that.”
Both Kerry and Earnest conceded the administration’s reliance on Russia’s alliances to maintain the cease-fire.
“So this obstructionism that has existed has to stop, and we call on the Russians and the Iranians to do everything in their power to leverage their client to understand the stakes here,” Kerry said.
“We’re also encouraging all of our partners in the [international group that brokered the cease-fire] to use their influence with parties on the ground to not engage in actions that put the cessation of hostility at risk,” Earnest echoed.
Republicans such as Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker of Tennessee and Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson have argued that, since fighting broke out in Ukraine, Obama has not exacted a price from Putin for his aggression.
“What we did wrong was we left a vacuum there for so long and left the Syrian opposition just hanging,” Corker told MSNBC last month. “Putin, Assad and Iran know that this administration is not going to do anything to push back against them, so … Russia will begin that cessation when they believe they’ve gotten all the terrain control that they want [Assad] to control. It’s totally in Russia’s hands now.”
Omar Hossino, spokesman for the Syrian American Council, agreed.
“These explicit signals of weakness and lack of American leadership, which is so characteristic of the Obama administration, will … only encourage Putin to achieve his goal” of propping up Assad and defeating the U.S.-backed Syrian rebels.
