STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

Syria Implodes in its Endless Civil War ….

Turkey Attacks Syria and the Kurds,

America Negotiates and Builds Effective Coalitions!
To all you cynics, it just may work. As the Republican race for the presidency mounts in tempo, heated discussions without much thought have been thrown out to the public regarding resolving the problem of ISIS and the Syrian Civil War. We hear the cries for more U.S. boots on the ground and greater fire power. Neither one is a viable solution for many reasons, the least of which is that we are dealing with a multi-faceted problem with over one hundred different competing fighting groups in both Iraq/Syria.

After some convincing and cajoling, Erdogan agreed to allow U.S. fighter jets into a base in Turkey to pursue the continuing kinetic degradation of ISIS. Yet this bouillabaisse of problems is so convoluted. On one hand, we are supported by a group of Kurds in Syria and Iraq while we overlook the Turkish enmity to the Kurdish PKK front. Without looking at the big picture, its easy to opt for a simplistic solution like more force; however, the real questions are: 

▪ how much more?

▪ when?

▪ which of the 100 member groups, even within ISIS  should be attacked?

So far this administration has chosen an effective weapon with the blessing of our military/intelligence community [IC]. Such a choice is extremely difficult to pursue and implement but it may prove out to be the most lethal weapons of all—NEGOTIATIONS and BUILDING COALITIONS! Sounds airy-fairy but believe me, it is far more difficult to accomplish and implement than a useless kinetic war.

Why?
Contrary to common wisdom, Russia has turned out to be one of our more crucial allies in the Middle East. Putin and his extremely talented Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, have made a concerted effort to engage the Iranians through the good services of IRG General Suliemani as well as Syria’s President Bashar Assad to negotiate an end to this useless civil war. Alongside these efforts, the USG went out of its way to co-opt the Turkish President Erdogan to help us destroy the enemy that we both inadvertently created-ISIS/ISIL. In that latter process, we have been able to work with two different Kurdish groups – the Pesh Merga in Iraq [Tirkrit] and YPG [primarily women fighters] in Northern Syria. At the same time, we have allowed the mercurial leader Erdogan to have his way in fighting his primary nemesis –the PKK [the head of the Kurdish Liberation Movement].

How the outcome of these conflicting alliances might turn out, I am not certain. I do know that this type of coalition building is complicated, tedious and very labor intensive [if not psychologically demanding]. For those Republicans and Hawkish Democrats who think that we should have more bombings and American boots on the ground, I say no American citizens has vouchsafed for this expensive undertaking nor has military leadership proposed a more intensive kinetic war.

We are in an age where war is fought in areas of the ethos that no one could have predicted decades ago, let alone prior to WWII. We are now engaged in conflicts where binary numbers are going to determine the outcome of some battle on social media. We have the limited resource of water in both Iraq/Syria as a most effective weapon. What happens when both the citizenry and the combat elements have no more water? That is what is happening in Syria.

For many of you who don’t remember why the civil war started in Syria, it had nothing to do with religion but rather the horrible truth that the Sunni farmers of Homs [Sunni stronghold] had no water. They could no longer farm their land. So they all descended onto Damascus, looking for work and water. Neither appropriate work nor water was conveniently available so social instability with the unsolicited aid from Saudi Arabia [seeking to place a foothold into Syria against its arch enemy Iran] flared up into what we now call  a “Humanitarian Disaster”. Over 4 Million Syrians have been displaced from their homes and over a quarter of million were killed by the conflict. As usual, the UN stepped into the scenario and performed accordingly, a fiasco.

Russia, US, Iran, Turkey and an assortment of different parties, including the Israelis, who have maintained a decent modicum of silence with regards to the Syrian conflict –have helped this burgeoning coalition to succeed. In the beginning, I was hoping that Bashar Assad could hold onto the reins of power. I was wrong. I did not misread his intentions or ruthlessness. I just underestimated the degree to which he would want to decimate his own Syrian citizens utilizing gas warfare and “barrel bombs” [they are more deadly than regular bombs because they splay out deadly metal debris].

I have come to the sad conclusion that the beautiful country of Syria where Aleppo, Damascus and Palmyra stood in my mind as enticing respites from the endless deadly arid deserts, is now gone. Whatever is left of Syria is a swath of useless land somewhere in the coast line of the Mediterranean waters. The conclusion of this unwarranted civil war is yet to be set in writing. My suspicion is that Bashar and family will have to leave Syria for either Russia or England where Bashar trained as an Ophthalmologist; and the interim ruling party will consist of a coalition of different parties acting as proxies of the major powers.

I am certain that Russia, Turkey, Iran, and the USA will have to provide some guarantee for this eventual peace. Perhaps it could be in the way Lawrence Eagleburger and I  set up the initial peace-keeping force in the Sinai Peninsula, creating an effective buffer zone between Egypt and Israel. Or, it could look like the interim peace agreement that I helped to set up in Cambodia under Secretary of State James Baker.

In either case, patient negotiation with all the parties involved in the conflict is the best weapon of peace that we have for now.

In the words of John Lennon:
“Let’s Give Peace A Chance!”

Everything else has failed up to this point.