TheHill: The outcome of Syria’s long-running civil war is effectively settled, according to the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
And Russia won.
“Let’s face it: This is close to over now,” Sen. Bob Corker told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor on Wednesday.
“It is very difficult at present, with Russia having stepped into the vacuum … now it’s a direct conflict with Russia,“ Corker added, “which is why there’s unlikely to be a Plan B.”
American inaction, Corker maintained —particularly following President Obama’s failure to act on the “red line” he imposed in 2013 with regard to the use of chemical weapons —has effectively empowered Russia’s support of embattled leader Bashar Assad.
“Let’s face it: We are empowering Assad,” Corker maintained on Wednesday.
“When we did not hit Assad in September of 2013 and said to the world —said to the world —that we could not be counted on. … Who propped up Assad more than anyone? We did!” Corker exclaimed. “We began by propping up Assad and making these hollow comments about ‘He had to go.’”
Corker’s comments on Wednesday came on the heels of this week’s announcement that the U.S. and Russia had reached a “cessation of hostilities”scheduled to go into effect on Saturday.
The arrangement, which many viewed skeptically, will allow for continued airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other designated terror groups. However, it calls for both sides to stop seeking new territory and allow for humanitarian aide to pass through.
Washington and Moscow have been at odds in the Syrian chaos. While both countries have claimed to be trying to root out terrorists, Russian forces have frequently targeted U.S.-backed rebels trying to unseat Assad from power.
According to Corker, Russia won’t change its calculus until challenges against Assad have been wiped out.
WSJ:
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama’s top military and intelligence advisers, convinced Russia won’t abide by a cease-fire in Syria, are pushing for ways to increase pressure on Moscow, including expanding covert military assistance for some rebels now taking a pounding from Russian airstrikes.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter; Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan have voiced increasingly tough views in White House meetings, calling for new measures to “inflict real pain on the Russians,” a senior administration official said.
The emerging alliance of Russia hawks exposes discord among defense and diplomatic officials and could put pressure on Mr. Obama to take stronger action against Moscow. But doing so risks pulling the U.S. deeper into a proxy fight in Syria, with Moscow showing little sign of lessening its support for President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian government said Tuesday it accepted the proposed cease-fire, announced a day earlier by the U.S. and Russia. But it said military operations would continue not only against Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front—both designated by the United Nations as terrorist organizations—but against “other terrorist groups connected to them” as well.
Russia and the Assad regime have branded all rebel groups as terrorists—further clouding prospects for any truce.
The opposition’s delegation to U.N.-mediated peace talks in Geneva said late Monday it supported the U.S.-Russia deal, with several conditions related to humanitarian issues.
Russia’s bombing campaign in Syria, launched last fall, has infuriated the CIA in particular because the strikes have aggressively targeted relatively moderate rebels it has backed with military supplies, including antitank missiles, U.S. officials say.
Officials say it was unclear whether stepped-up support would make much difference at this stage, given how much ground the CIA-backed rebels have lost in the recent pro-regime offensive.
Mr. Obama has been reluctant to allow either the U.S. or its regional partners to supply the rebels with advanced ground-to-air antiaircraft weapons to fend off airstrikes. While introducing that sort of system could be a game-changer, any decision to help the rebels directly go after Russian soldiers or destroy Russian airplanes could mark a dramatic escalation.
At the heart of the debate is how much confidence to place in diplomacy at this point in the Syria drama.
On Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry said there have been discussions within the administration over what strategy to pursue “in the event we don’t succeed” in negotiations. He noted the president has the ability to take additional actions against Moscow.
But Mr. Kerry also said that “this is a moment to try to see whether or not we can make this work, not to find ways to preordain its failure and start talking about all the downsides of what we might do afterward.”
Officials said neither Mr. Carter nor Gen. Dunford had formally submitted recommendations to Mr. Obama.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the CIA director. Navy Capt. Greg Hicks, a spokesman for Gen. Dunford, said the general’s recommendations were private.
A senior administration official said of the White House’s review: “We’ll judge Russia by its actions, not its words.”
The official added: “To be clear: Our actions are not aimed at Russia. Our focus, however, does not change the fact that Russia, by increasingly involving itself in a vicious conflict on the side of a brutal dictator, will become enmeshed in a quagmire. Should it not change course, Russia’s fate will be self-inflicted.”
Aside from expanding the CIA program, other options under discussion include providing intelligence support to moderate rebels to help them better defend themselves against Russian air attacks and to possibly conduct more effective offensive operations, officials said.
Another option with wide support among Mr. Obama’s advisers would impose new economic sanctions against Russia. But senior administration officials said they doubt European powers would go along, given the importance they place on trade with Russia.
The drawn-out negotiations with Moscow this month over a cease-fire agreement in Syria exposed the growing rift within the administration.
Mr. Carter had publicly voiced support for the negotiations led by Mr. Kerry. But while the talks were under way last week, Messrs. Carter and Brennan, and Gen. Dunford, privately warned the White House they risked undermining Washington’s standing with regional partners in the two U.S.-led coalitions—one in support of anti-Assad rebels, the other fighting Islamic State, the senior officials said.
At one point last week, the Pentagon came close to withdrawing its representatives from the cease-fire talks after the Russians claimed military cooperation between the U.S. and Russia was part of the closed-door discussions, according to senior administration officials.
Mr. Carter was upset about the Russian claims because he had explicitly ruled out such discussions, the officials said.
The Pentagon believes Russia was trying to try to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its coalition partners and to make it look like Washington would support Moscow’s military campaign in Syria and accept Mr. Assad.
While Russia was engaged in the cease-fire talks, U.S. officials say its war planes stepped up their attacks on positions held by moderate rebels. Russia maintains its airstrikes are targeting terrorist groups.
Mr. Kerry believes Monday’s agreement has “a viable chance of succeeding,” according to a senior administration official close to the secretary.
In contrast, Mr. Carter told senior officials Monday that it won’t hold. “He thinks it’s a ruse,” a senior administration official said.
Messrs. Carter and Brennan and Gen. Dunford raised many of their concerns in meetings last week involving Mr. Kerry, White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, according to senior administration officials.
The senior administration official close to Mr. Kerry said the secretary recognized the challenge of ensuring Russian compliance. The official added that the agreement was partially intended to test whether Moscow can be trusted. If Russia doesn’t abide by the deal, then “Plan-B thinking needs to occur,” the official said.
Mr. Kerry has supported the CIA program in Syria in the past and has advocated for greater military involvement, such as the creation of a safe zone to protect the moderate opposition. But the Pentagon has been resistant to such ideas, warning they could lead to a conflict with Russia, administration officials have said.
Senior administration officials involved in the discussions said it is unclear whether Mr. Obama would support expanding the CIA program.
Ms. Rice, Mr. McDonough and other senior national security officials at the White House have voiced skepticism in the past about the CIA effort.
White House critics of the program warned that open-ended support for the rebels could pull the U.S. deeper into the conflict over time, with little chance of success as long as Moscow remains willing to increase its support to Mr. Assad, according to former administration officials.
Current and former officials said Mr. Obama was persuaded in 2013 to green-light the covert program in Syria in part because doing so gave the CIA influence over the actions of regional partners, including Saudi and Turkish intelligence, preventing them, for example, from introducing advanced antiaircraft weapons known as Manpads on the battlefield. Washington warned the weapons could fall into terrorist hands and be turned against commercial aircraft.
If the U.S. doesn’t take action to prevent moderate rebel forces from being wiped out by the Russian-backed offensive, then the Saudis or some other group could decide to break ranks with Washington and send large numbers of Manpads into northern Syria to shoot down Russian bombers, U.S. intelligence agencies have warned policy makers, increasing the chances of a wider conflict.
