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Syria Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 03, 2013 2 Comments
In an interview airing now on Lebanese OTV television, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah discusses the Iranian nuclear deal (summary translation via NOW Lebanon):
The Iran nuclear deal has significant repercussions. The region’s peoples are the biggest winners from this deal because regional and international forces have been pushing for war with Iran which would have had dangerous repercussions in the region. The deal pushed off the [potential Israeli and US] war [against Iran]. Israel cannot possibly bomb nuclear facilities without the US’ green light. Monopoly of power is no longer present. All American wars have failed. John Kerry made it clear that the US does not want more wars. The US and Europe have failed in the region. It is unlikely that normalization will take place. Iranians wanted to reassure the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia. [interview in progress, check link for more]
More translation at Naharnet:

Posted by David Gerstman on December 01, 2013 3 Comments
A few months ago a picture of John and Teresa Heinz Kerry having dinner with Bashar and Asma Assad in 2009 resurfaced. The timing was awkward because it came just after the Secretary of State condemned Assad as a "thug," and compared him to Adolph Hitler for his use of chemical weapons. The problem with Kerry's meeting with Assad isn't just that it happened. It was the beginning of a relationship - with the approval of the Obama administration - in which the future secretary of state attempted to cultivate the dictator, apparently with the intent of weaning him away from Iran. Even after Assad's brutality towards protesters became undeniable, the Wall Street Journal reported that the administration wasn't ready to give up on him:
The killing of at least 70 people around the central town of Homs in the past five days, according to activists, brought to an estimated 1,100 the total toll in Mr. Assad's months-long crackdown and sparked tougher condemnation from the Obama administration. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged other Arab states, Russia and China to join in protesting the violence. ... Mrs. Clinton's ambiguity highlights the frustrating U.S. courtship of Bashar al-Assad. For more than two years, Mr. Obama's foreign-policy team has tried to woo Mr. Assad away from America's regional nemesis, Iran, and persuade him to resume peace talks with America's regional friend, Israel. For more than two years, Mr. Assad has frustrated the U.S. with the promise of reform and the practice of repression.
One detail in particular about the Obama administration's first term outreach to Syria sticks out, "Mr. Kerry, meanwhile, became Mr. Assad's champion in the U.S., urging lawmakers and policymakers to embrace the Syrian leader as a partner in stabilizing the Mideast." When it came to Syria John Kerry was out in front.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 14, 2013 23 Comments
While everyone has been focused on the Obamacare and Iranian-nuke debacles, the Kurdish region of Syria declared itself autonomous, which combined with the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq and the large Kurdish region in Turkey, may mark a significant step towards the establishment of a Kurdish state. Since the Kurds are not in conflict with Jews (and generally are quite friendly towards Israel), Kurdish national aspirations don't get much attention at the U.N. or elsewhere. No one much cares that Kurds, a truly distinctive cultural identity who number several times the "Palestinians," do not have a nation of their own. As reported by Al Arabiya:
Following a series of military gains, Syrian Kurds in the northeast of the country announced on Tuesday the formation of a transitional autonomous government. The latest declaration comes amid a general strengthening of Kurdish rights in neighboring Turkey, and increasing moves towards independence by Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region. Long oppressed under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his father before him, Kurds view the civil war as an opportunity to gain the kind of autonomy enjoyed by their ethnic kin in neighboring Iraq. The announcement was made after talks in the mostly-Kurdish town of Qamishli, and comes after Kurdish leaders announced plans to create the temporary government in July.
Intra-Kurdish rivalries pose a major danger to the autonomy holding. Turkey, which repeatedly has taken military action against Kurdish separatists (resulting in world silence, unlike when Israel defends itself against outside attack), is not pleased:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 02, 2013 2 Comments

But you knew that, because we have been following the antics of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for years. Erdogan blames the Jews for Egypt and he has video! (so do we) Turkish Deputy Prime Minister blames “Jewish Diaspora” for Gezi Park protests Turkish Prime Minister drops...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 01, 2013 12 Comments
Earlier this week three were unconfirmed reports of a very large explosion near the Syrian city of Latakia. There was relatively little media coverage to start, almost all from Israeli newspapers citing social media accounts. As in all these cases, Israeli officials were silent as to whodunit.  That's the dance that takes place to avoid a major war. Israel destroys game-changing weapons on their way to Hezbollah, Syria pretends it's not sure what happened, and everyone goes along with a major confrontation.  So long as Israel doesn't try to shift the balance of power within Syria and focuses on weapons headed to Hezbollah, Assad is under limited pressure to react. But not for the first time anonymous U.S. officials have told multiple U.S. media outlets that Israel was behind it. Which raises the question, why the leaks?

Posted by David Gerstman on October 30, 2013 6 Comments
Last week as we noted, the New York Times ran a devastating article about President Obama's Syria policy. The Times reported, among other things, that the President was disinterested in planning discussions about Syria. Two other articles reported that America's Middle East allies generally and the Saudis specifically were upset by the administration's Middle East policy. I guess that the New York Times had enough serious reporting about the shortcomings of the Obama administration's Middle East policy, because over the weekend, it published Rice Offers a More Modest Strategy for Mideast by its foremost White House cheerleader, Mark Landler. (Landler contributed to the Syria report, but was not one of the bylined reporters.)
Each Saturday morning in July and August, Susan E. Rice, President Obama’s new national security adviser, gathered half a dozen aides in her corner office in the White House to plot America’s future in the Middle East. The policy review, a kind of midcourse correction, has set the United States on a new heading in the world’s most turbulent region. At the United Nations last month, Mr. Obama laid out the priorities he has adopted as a result of the review. The United States, he declared, would focus on negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, brokering peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians and mitigating the strife in Syria. Everything else would take a back seat.
The article goes on to point out that even Egypt was no longer a priority. In a jab at President Obama's predecessor we learn:

Posted by David Gerstman on October 24, 2013 20 Comments
Yesterday's New York Times featured an article Obama’s Uncertain Path Amid Syria Bloodshed that is probably one of the most devastating indictments of the President's Syria policy published. I don't think that the reporters set out to critique the President and the tone of the article was always respectful. https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/393101410037821440 Still there are two description that really stuck out. The first was a general critique.
As one former senior White House official put it, “We spent so much damn time navel gazing, and that’s the tragedy of it.”
Over the past two years the article describes the various rationales the administration had for not intervening and that sentence turns out to be a very apt theme for the way the administration acted, or, more precisely, chose not to act. Then there was this:
Even as the debate about arming the rebels took on a new urgency, Mr. Obama rarely voiced strong opinions during senior staff meetings. But current and former officials said his body language was telling: he often appeared impatient or disengaged while listening to the debate, sometimes scrolling through messages on his BlackBerry or slouching and chewing gum.
One would have assumed that a Syria policy was one of the two most important foreign policy issues facing the President. (The other is the question of Iran's nuclear policy.) Being "disengaged" during such momentous discussions is worse than being engaged but making bad decisions. https://twitter.com/tobyharnden/status/393025446348349441  

Posted by David Gerstman on September 23, 2013 8 Comments
In recent weeks, the New York Times has been playing up the moderation of Iran's new government, especially that of its new president Hassan Rouhani. Yesterday's editorial, President Rouhani Comes to Town ahead of Rouhani's speech before the U.N. later this week, is one more element of that campaign.
All eyes at this week’s United Nations General Assembly will be on Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani. Since taking office in August, he has sent encouraging signals about his willingness to engage more constructively with the West than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who insisted on proceeding with Iran’s nuclear program, denied the Holocaust and seemed unconcerned as his country slipped into deeper economic distress. Mr. Rouhani’s assembly address on Tuesday gives him a chance to provide concrete evidence that his talk of change is real.
https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/381099542533271553 Perhaps the most important article to appear last week in the media was Iranians Dial Up Presence in Syria in the Wall Street Journal (Google search terms)
The busloads of Shiite militiamen from Iraq, Syria and other Arab states have been arriving at the Iranian base in recent weeks, under cover of darkness, for instruction in urban warfare and the teachings of Iran's clerics, according to Iranian military figures and residents in the area. The fighters' mission: Fortify the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad against Sunni rebels, the U.S. and Israel. ... The fighters "are told that the war in Syria is akin to [an] epic battle for Shiite Islam, and if they die they will be martyrs of the highest rank," says an Iranian military officer briefed on the training camp, which is 15 miles outside Tehran and called Amir Al-Momenin, or Commander of the Faithful. The training of thousands of fighters is an outgrowth of Iran's decision last year to immerse itself in the Syrian civil war on behalf of its struggling ally, the Assad regime, in an effort to shift the balance of power in the Middle East. Syria's bloodshed is shaping into more than a civil war: It is now a proxy war among regional powers jockeying for influence in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions.
https://twitter.com/UANI/status/380085805097971714

Posted by Mandy Nagy on September 20, 2013 7 Comments

Syria has reportedly turned over information outlining its weapons program to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. https://twitter.com/AP/status/381048351208513536 From the Associated Press: Syria has sent the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons an "initial declaration" outlining its weapons program, the organization said Friday. Spokesman Michael Luhan...

Posted by David Gerstman on September 17, 2013 6 Comments

“Our collective failure to prevent atrocity crimes in Syria over the past two and a half years will remain a heavy burden on the standing of the United Nations and its member states.” Ban Ki-Moon Secretary General of the United Nations, September 10, 2013 "The United States...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 16, 2013 4 Comments

A lot of attention is focused on Jihadist elements fighting in Syria, and the more "secular" Assad regime. The most underreported aspect of the civil war is that it's not just a civil war, it's a grand power-play by Iran to keep control of Syria as...

Posted by David Gerstman on September 16, 2013 34 Comments

Mideast Media Sampler 09/16/2013: Never really intended, Putin gave him a way out....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 15, 2013 25 Comments

Jeffrey Goldberg makes several points similar to the points I made in my post last night, The Deal: In order to remove the threat of Bashar Assad, we have to save Bashar Assad. Goldberg writes, New Syria Agreement Is a Big Victory. For Assad: A couple of...

Posted by Mandy Nagy on September 14, 2013 16 Comments

The US and Russia reached an agreement on a plan for Syria to turn over its chemical weapons. https://twitter.com/AP/status/378824698844688384 From the State Department's Framework for Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons: Taking into account the decision of the Syrian Arab Republic to accede to the Chemical Weapons Convention and...

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