The Century Foundation: "Syrian Humanitarian 'Lifeline' Goes to Vote"

Today at The Century Foundation, I have a new report on the stakes of Tuesday’s expected vote to renew UN Security Council Resolution 2165 – the international legal mandate for Syria’s cross-border humanitarian response.

“Syrian Humanitarian ‘Lifeline’ Goes to Vote”

For months, humanitarians and donors have been anxious over the renewal of UNSCR 2165. On Tuesday, December 19, the Security Council is expected to finally vote on what a top UN relief official has called a “lifeline” for Syrians in need.

Most of the Security Council backs renewal of UNSCR 2165, which they argue is purely humanitarian. But the resolution also has clear political implications, insofar as cross-border aid without the permission of Syria’s Assad regime has been a potent symbol of Syria’s broken sovereignty.

And only one vote really matters: Russia’s. Russia has said UNSCR 2165 was an emergency response to conditions that no longer exist and that the resolution should be phased out. No one really knows whether Russia will ultimately opt for renewal, or what concessions it wants in exchange.

Of the more than a dozen humanitarians and donor-country diplomats who spoke to me ahead of the vote, most thought the resolution would be renewed – this time.

But even though a renewal will save lives, it’s also only a temporary reprieve. As the Assad regime returns from the brink, an international system premised on state sovereignty is likewise reasserting itself. In that normal international order, it’s tough to imagine a place for something exceptional like UNSCR 2165 – and without that exception, there’s no good alternative means to help millions of Syrians.

The Century Foundation: "Geneva Talks Will Not Salvage U.S. Syria Policy"

At The Century Foundation, I’ve written about America’s reinvestment in Geneva peace talks and how – as I understand it – Russia is simultaneously managing Geneva and its own set of parallel processes.

“Geneva Talks Will Not Salvage U.S. Syria Policy”

Washington is now counting on Geneva to tie together the disparate strings of U.S. policy in Syria. It’s not going to work. Geneva is structurally broken, and no amount of American enthusiasm will fix that.

Geneva won’t make U.S. Syria policy make sense, and it won’t lead to a political settlement Washington actually likes. If these talks produce anything at all, that thing will be made to Russian specifications. So America needs to ask itself – is that what it wants?

The Century Foundation: "Turkey Through the Syrian Looking Glass"

For The Century Foundation (originally published November 28):

“Turkey Through the Syrian Looking Glass”

More than a month after Turkey’s intervention to enforce a “de-escalation” in Syria’s Idlib province, there’s still little clarity on exactly what Turkey is doing in Syria.

That might be deliberate, because Turkey’s deployment is – as best as I can tell – based on an unpalatable deal with the jihadists who control Idlib. To secure Turkish interests and safeguard at least some of Idlib’s residents, Turkey seems to be working with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the successor to Syria’s former al-Qaeda affiliate.

By engaging Tahrir al-Sham mostly Syrian leadership, Turkey may be working to flush the northwest of transnational, al-Qaeda-loyal jihadists . Or, less charitably, it may just be looking after Turkish concerns and collaborating with the local partner closest at hand.

Either way, the Turkish move into Idlib is risky, both in terms of its slim chances and Turkey’s reputation. But it may also be the only way to avert a battle for Idlib that would be disastrous for millions of civilians.

War on the Rocks: "What an Unfolding Humanitarian Disaster in a U.S.-Protected Enclave Tells Us About American Strategy in Syria"

New from me today on War on the Rocks:

“What an Unfolding Humanitarian Disaster in a U.S.-Protected Enclave Tells Us About American Strategy in Syria”

The American base in Tanaf, in Syria’s southeastern desert, has taken on outsized political import. It was originally meant to be a staging ground for a southern prong of the counter-ISIS military campaign. Then, for a brief, overheated moment, it was supposedly where America would block an Iranian “land bridge.” Now it is a symbol of Washington’s refusal to yield to Syrian, Iranian, and Russia pressure and, in theory, key leverage on Damascus and its allies.

But on the ground – below the cloud of geopolitical intrigue and the U.S. military’s defense of Tanaf – the base is tangled up with the Rukban camp. Rukban is an improvised, squalid settlement between the earth berms marking the Syrian and Jordanian border that is home to 50,000 displaced people, among them the families of America’s local Syrian partners. The “deconfliction” zone around Tanaf is all that protects Rukban from a Syrian regime advance.

The United States has taken ownership of the Tanaf zone, including Rukban. And Rukban’s residents are miserable and hungry. The United States and its allies have been unable to convince the Jordanians to allow a new delivery of assistance to Rukban’s residents, just over the border berm from Jordan. Now America has to appeal for a cross-line aid delivery via Damascus, pending the approval of a regime that has weaponized humanitarian access.

The whole thing is a farce.

Rukban is an embarrassment, as well as a lesson in America’s ability to bend Syria and the region to its strategic ambitions. Before Washington wants to start marshaling its allies towards big geopolitical ends, it should start by convincing Jordan to allow a crane drop of tarps, blankets, and food into Rukban.

World Politics Review: "What Will a Post-ISIS Political Order in Syria Actually Look Like?"

New from me for World Politics Review:

“What Will a Post-ISIS Political Order in Syria Actually Look Like?”

The United States and its Coalition allies never had a real political vision for a post-ISIS Syria. Now the country’s post-ISIS political order will be defined by the ground reality of how, militarily, ISIS lost.

The Century Foundation: "Saving America's Syrian Ceasefire"

My latest for The Century Foundation:

“Saving America’s Syrian Ceasefire”

I went to Jordan in September to get a sense of one of America’s last major policy efforts in Syria: the “de-escalation” agreement covering Syria’s southwest. The de-escalation is the product of months of trilateral negotiations between the United States, Russia, and Jordan. So far it has yielded a clear reduction in violence – but its future is uncertain.

Beyond immediate practical steps like a ceasefire and, potentially, the reopening of a key border crossing with Jordan, the agreement seems not to outline any real future or political vision for Syria’s south – no one knows what comes next, and the mood in Amman is uneasy. Meanwhile, a separate U.S. government decision to cut off arms and salaries to southern rebels late this year threatens to destabilize the de-escalation. The move raises more questions about U.S. commitment to the south and its neighboring allies’ security.

The de-escalation seems worth saving, but it’s going to mean more work. It’s going to require the sort of forward-looking institutional groundwork that positions the south for successful reintegration into the Syrian state – not just dissolution and piecemeal “reconciliation” by the regime. And in the meantime, someone has to step in pay these fighters’ salaries, or the south’s going to go haywire.

Tahrir al-Sham official on Turkey's intervention to implement Astana: "That’s not the reality."

Below is a translation of a 13 October Telegram post by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (previously Jabhat al-Nusrah) media official Muhammad Nazzal (“Abu Khattab al-Maqdisi”).

This post represents the purest distillation I’ve seen of how Hayat Tahrir al-Sham seems to be justifying the limited entrance of Turkish forces in the northern Idlib/western Aleppo countryside, including the various pragmatic considerations at work and the mutually agreed-upon, explicit conditions of the Turkish presence.

What Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has agreed to, per Nazzal and other prominent Tahrir al-Sham figures, would seem not to satisfy the expected terms of a tripartite Turkish-Iranian-Russian agreement in Astana. Nazzal is emphatic that Turkey is taking up positions opposite the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Afrin, an enclave north of the insurgent-held northwest, and not deploying further south to police the line of contact between Tahrir al-Sham and the Assad regime. It’s tough to imagine how this would address the concerns of Turkey’s co-guarantors in Astana – unless there is another big shoe to drop, one these Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leaders don’t know about or won’t acknowledge. Nazzal’s contention is that when the Turks claim to be implementing the Astana de-escalation, they’re basically just fudging it.

These sorts of claims from Tahrir al-Sham only raise more questions about a Turkish intervention that is, frankly, bizarre. For a NATO member state to enter Syria with an armed escort from a sort-of al-Qaeda affiliate is, um, non-standard. It currently seems impossible to say how far Turkey’s intervention will go, or where it will end. Maybe Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader Abu Muhammad al-Jolani has deceived his own rank-and-file about the scope of his agreement with Turkey, or maybe Turkey plans to unilaterally amend or abrogate the terms of the agreement it’s reached with Tahrir al-Sham. If the deal between Turkey and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is less explicit or mutually understood than Nazzal says, then an armed showdown between the two is likely on the way, whatever the Turkish government has claimed publicly about a non-combat observer mission.

And if Turkey and Tahrir al-Sham turn on each other and this does get violent, then – as Nazzal makes clear at the start – Tahrir al-Sham has options.

Translation and original post follow, below the jump.

Jabhat al-Nusrah/Hayat Tahrir al-Sham media official Muhammad Nazzal (“Abu Khattab al-Maqdisi”), 13 October 2017:

“If it happens – and this is possible – that Turkey betrays [us] after entering the liberated territories, it won’t make any difference. Anyone who thinks repelling a cross-border Turkish invasion with one long defensive line makes military sense is mistaken. Even if there were an invasion – without this latest [Turkish] entrance – you wouldn’t deal with it just by facing it with a defensive line. Rather, that would be part of it, but the larger, stronger, and more important part would be inside the liberated territories. That’s if it happened, God forbid…

“And anyone who draws an equivalency between allowing the Turks to enter as part of a clear, explicitly drafted agreement to assume three military positions opposite these Kurdish militias and a full [Turkish] invasion, which would lead to grave ills, is likewise mistaken.

“No one says that the Turks’ entrance to these points is some desirable interest; rather, it’s the lesser of two evils. And none of what is now happening involves the implementation of the Astana agreement on the ground, as some are trying to depict it.

“Yes, Turkey wants to show to Russia and others that it’s implementing what they emerged with from Astana. But that’s not the reality.

“Likewise, drawing an equivalency between the Hayah and Ahrar [al-Sham] on the grounds that the Hayah did an injustice to Ahrar and aggressed on it because of Astana – just Astana – is also incorrect. Everyone knows what happened, and how things developed and worsened, starting with the Hayah’s request for military positions and a presence alongside Ahrar on the borders to secure [itself] from [Ahrar’s] treachery, and because Ahrar, in the Hayah’s view, wasn’t worth of its trust; and then these positions came from Ahrar, then the problems in the Badiyah, then Jabal al-Zawiyah, then Ahrar expanded the fight to Sarmada and its surroundings, then Salqin and its surroundings; until things ended with removing Ahrar from the border strip. Even if that had been the Hayah’s goal, it wouldn’t have been capable of doing it if it hadn’t been for Ahrar’s own aggression and behavior, starting with Jabal al-Zawiyah and on through Sarmada, and before that the points on the border.

“And there’s a point that some dear ones who have discussed [Turkey’s] entry have neglected, which is that what the Hayah – and previously the Jabhah – has done now, ending with its agreement to the entrance of a Turkish force, is a reaction and an attempt to minimize the losses from what happened in the Astana and Geneva agreements and the equivalent. It is not an acknowledgement of [those agreements], as some are claiming and trying to portray. [They’re trying] to show that the position of someone who went [to these talks], negotiated, sat down, and signed, to the point of giving coordinates and maps of his locations is similar to the positions of the Hayah, which has worked to minimize the harms of what they produced in these meetings and conferences abroad.

“And for [everyone’s] information: This [Turkish] entrance has conditions, including that the Turks will not control [these areas] or interfere in any form in the administration of any village or city, as well as our total dominance over them, such that we have the power to expel them at any time. This is the biggest distinction between [the Turks’] entrance within this framework and between those who wanted to bring them in unconditionally, for [the Turks] to come in to supervise the de-escalation agreement, which stipulates their presence on the entirety of the fronts with the regime… So the revolution would end, and it would come to a close overnight!”

Foreign Affairs: "Don't Fund Syria's Reconstruction"

New from me from for Foreign Affairs:

“Don’t Fund Syria’s Reconstruction”

As the regime of Bashar al-Assad draws closer to a victory on the battlefield, domestic Syrian and international attention has turned to the next fight – the terms of Syrian reconstruction. The opposition’s Western backers have supposed that reconstruction funds are their last useful means of extracting concessions from the regime, while experts have theorized how reconstruction efforts can be insulated from the politics of re-legitimizing Assad.

My take – well, I guess it’s in the article title.

المدن: "مسألة البادية وانهاء الجيش الحر"

مقالتي الأولى لصحيفة "المدن"، حول معارك البادية والموقف الأمريكي:

"مسألة البادية وانهاء الجيش الحر"

حلب اليوم، "سورية في أسبوع": "هل تغيرت أولويات الغرب في سورية؟ أم كانت مواقفه السابقة مجرد متاجرة سياسية؟"

مشاركتي في برنامج "سورية في أسبوع" على قناة "حلب اليوم" حول أولويات الغرب في سوريا وآفاق القضية السورية:

The Century Foundation: "Desert Base Is Displaced Syrians’ Last Line of Defense"

New from me for The Century Foundation:

“Desert Base Is Displaced Syrians’ Last Line of Defense”

In the Badiyah desert, the Syrian regime’s eastward advance has jammed together America’s covert war in Syria, its overt campaign against the Islamic State, and two camps holding tens of thousands of vulnerable displaced people, all in one shrinking space.

The United States and Russia reached a “deconfliction” arrangement to protect U.S.-led Coalition forces in the Tanf base – but now the Coalition presence at Tanf is all that protects the camps from advancing regime and allied forces.

The Coalition isn’t there to protect civilians, it’s there to fight the Islamic State – and around the base, there’s no more Islamic State. The U.S.-led Coalition won’t stay in this base forever, even if it’s unlikely to leave just yet. Now U.S. planners have to figure out how to safeguard these displaced Syrians and produce a solution for these camps, which have merged with America’s more hard-edged covert and overt efforts to become a single intractable problem.

War on the Rocks: "A Deadly Delusion: Were Syria's Rebels Ever Going to Defeat the Jihadists?"

New from me for War on the Rocks:

“A Deadly Delusion: Were Syria’s Rebels Ever Going to Defeat the Jihadists?”

Whatever else Syria’s rebels were, and whatever the reasons for backing them – they were never going to be a “counter-terrorism force.”

As combating al-Qaeda and the Islamic State gradually subsumed America and the rest of the world’s policy priorities in Syria, opposition boosters increasingly argued for backing Syria’s rebels in “counter-terrorism” terms. But this argument was never real. There were only sao many times rebels could work alongside (or under) jihadists, or stand aside while jihadists liquidated rival factions, before it became clear they would never be a useful counter-terrorism partner.

Yet because of outside policymakers and analysts’ simplistic sectarian logic and unhelpful repetition of opposition tropes, the policy debate on Syria got more and more disengaged from this reality. And in the end, there was no necessary reckoning over the opposition’s entanglements with jihadists until it was too late.

The Century Foundation / Carnegie Middle East Center: "Reform, Revolution, Culture: How to Resist Arab Authoritarianism?"

Below is the video of our panel from the “Arab Politics beyond the Uprisings” launch event, held on July 13, 2017 at Beirut’s Carnegie Middle East Center. The panel featured me, Asya El-Meehy, and Aron Lund, and was moderated by Michael Wahid Hanna.

For a full write-up of the event (including video of the second panel), see “Reform, Revolution, Culture: How to Resist Arab Authoritarianism?”

Carnegie Middle East Center's Diwan: "What’s Next in Idlib?"

I talk to Carnegie Middle East Center’s Diwan – two weeks ago, so before Hayat Tahrir al-Sham / Jabhat al-Nusrah’s outright takeover – about the situation in rebel Idlib:

Carnegie page: http://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/72611

"مركز كارنيغي للشرق الأوسط: "ما الخطوة التالية في إدلب؟

مقابلتي مع "مركز كارنيغي للشرق الأوسط" (باللغة العربية) عن آفاق محافظة إدلب والشمال السوري المحرر:

ملاحظة: تم تسجيل المقابلة قبل الأحداث الأخيرة وفرض هيئة تحرير الشام / جبهة النصرة لسيطرتها على مفاصل الشمال.

والرابط الأساسي: http://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/72613

The Century Foundation: "America Had Already Lost Its Covert War in Syria—Now It’s Official"

New from me at The Century Foundation:

“America Had Already Lost Its Covert War in Syria—Now It’s Official”

President Trump has shut down America’s covert program to arm and train Syrian rebels fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

There’s been some rending of clothing over this, but – let’s be real – the program was doomed. By the time Trump took office, the program no longer made sense, if it ever did. The United States couldn’t just keep fueling a war that had no definable end and feeding a rebel host body from which al-Qaeda could suck blood.

Now it’s over – America’s covert war in Syria is finished. With America’s halfway commitment to regime change behind us, it’s time to look forward.

Foreign Affairs: "Washington's Dead End in Syria"

New from me for Foreign Affairs today:

“Washington’s Dead End in Syria”

In Syria, the United States may have won a victory over the Islamic State that only lasts so long as the U.S. sticks around indefinitely. Because of the specific local partner on which America has relied – the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) – we seemingly can’t withdraw without sparking a Turkish-Kurdish conflagration, a maelstrom that would allow ISIS to resurge. But the alternative is sponsoring a northeast Syria demi-state at odds with all its neighbors, putting American lives on the line to sustain a nexus of regional instability and solidify the effective partition of Syria.

This is… sub-ideal. If possible, we need to find a way out.

Yousef al-Qaradhawi and the "Children Bomb" (Updated)

(Updated below with response from Declan Walsh / the New York Times.)

In Declan Walsh’s 16 July New York Times article on Qatar’s tendency to host politically iffy guests, he illustrates the controversy surrounding Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradhawi with a particularly inflammatory quote:

I don’t love this quote, which I think is over-truncated and probably unfair. It’s from an April 2002 episode of Qaradhawi’s religious question-and-answer show on Al Jazeera, “Shari’ah and Life.” The original quote, in Arabic:

And the English translation below. For clarity: Qaradhawi is being asked about Palestinian minors carrying out suicide attacks, despite Hamas’s call for them to refrain.

“I say that even though this shows, of course, a lack of discipline, it also shows that these youth have had enough, and that they want to die as martyrs on the path of God. This desire for martyrdom is a tremendous spiritual strength, one the Israelis don’t possess. The Israelis have the nuclear (al-dhariyyah) bomb, but we have the bomb of these offspring (al-dhuriyyah) – these offspring who desire martyrdom and this death, that’s what we possess. So these human bombs need to continue until… until liberation. That is, from men, from women. We salute these heroes, male and female: Wafaa Idris and Ayat al-Akhras, and Andalib and Nidhal and Fulanah. I don’t remember all their names. I salute them and congratulate them and call for more of these heroic acts of martyrdom from our brothers and sisters, from our sons and daughters. And I ask these youth to obey the orders of the commanders so their lives don’t go to waste. Maybe if they entered into an organization that can organize things, so things are put in their place.”

The quote has also featured and been clipped elsewhere. But it’s typically at least included the “nuclear bomb” reference that completes Qaradhawi’s rhetorical contrast, even if the Arabic pun is lost in translation – see here, for example.

I honestly can’t decide how much I object to the New York Times version of the quote. At a minimum, it excises the quote’s middle section without the use of ellipsis, so it’s not technically accurate.

But my gut sense is that this quote implies – without context – that Qaradhawi is specifically advocating the use of child suicide bombers as a tactic, as opposed to hailing suicide attacks more broadly and making a rhetorical point about how Palestinian youths’ spirit of resistance and sacrifice is evidence of the Palestinian people’s moral strength.

Obviously, this is hair-splitting. And it’s not like Qaradhawi’s not saying some out-there stuff. As the full quote shows, Qaradhawi’s still super-in on suicide bombings. And he’s sympathetic to the motivation behind minors’ suicide attacks, even if he advocates that they should yield to the directives of Hamas commanders.

Anyway, I just wanted to register a minor objection to what I thought was a minor (I assume inadvertent) distortion by Walsh and the Times.

Update: Below is Declan Walsh / the Times‘s response:

We have gone back over this in detail. The question Qaradawi is asked is specifically about 12 and 14 years olds participating in attacks.

— Declan Walsh (@declanwalsh) July 20, 2017

In direct response Q talks approvingly about their desire for martyrdom, etc. The word 'offspring' is synonymous with children, so there is

— Declan Walsh (@declanwalsh) July 20, 2017

... some ambiguity. Neither are age-specific, and usually derive that specificity from context. Here, the context seems pretty clear.

— Declan Walsh (@declanwalsh) July 20, 2017

So, like a lot of clerical language, it's pretty broad, and I understand how it can be taken otherwise. But this does not seem an inaccurate

— Declan Walsh (@declanwalsh) July 20, 2017

translation to me. Scholars may differ ;)

— Declan Walsh (@declanwalsh) July 20, 2017

The Century Foundation: "Geneva Peace Talks Won’t Solve Syria—So Why Have Them?"

New from me for The Century Foundation:

Geneva Peace Talks Won’t Solve Syria—So Why Have Them?

Ahead of the latest round of Syria’s Geneva talks, the most pressing question seems to be: Why?

That is, why is the Geneva process still ongoing? And why go?

In interviews, participants told me there are specific rationales to keep attending Geneva, as well as for the continued existence of Geneva itself. For them, Geneva is a vessel for a possible future deal, a platform for Syrian civil society, and – bluntly – – something other than rival, Russian-engineered Astana talks.

What Geneva talks are not, it seems, is a real chance to negotiate an end to the war.

War on the Rocks: "The Signal in Syria's Noise"

New from me on War on the Rocks:

The Signal in Syria’s Noise

Syria’s war isn’t about Syria’s hundreds or thousands of moving parts, it’s about how they fit together. Whether in terms of the real dynamics of power and control within the war’s opposing camps or the country’s more holistic strategic picture, it’s how the war’s elements relate to each other that tends to actually explain the conflict.

U.S. Syria policy needs to be calibrated to these second-order connections and linkages if the United States is going to selectively, productively engage in Syria – and then, ideally, leave.