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How Should U.S. Policy Shift in Syria?

In an Atlantic Council policy brief, Faysal Itani and Caerus Senior Analyst Nathaniel Rosenblatt argue that before it can attempt to moderate negotiations, the U.S. needs to build more leverage with parties on both sides of the Syrian conflict,

Written by Karen Leigh Published on Read time Approx. 5 minutes

Last week, the Atlantic Council released a brief entitled “Zooming in on Syria: Adapting U.S. Policy to Local Realities.” Its authors, the Council’s resident fellow Faysal Itani and Nathaniel Rosenblatt of Caerus Associates argue for a shift in U.S. policy towards Syria.

“The United States has repeatedly failed to realize its goal of a political transition in Syria because of its narrow focus on summits and high-level diplomacy as the sole means of ending the conflict,” they say in a briefing note. “In order to bring about such a change, there must first be a coalition of local actors inside the country who are powerful enough to fight against the Assad regime and negotiate on behalf of Syrians at the national level.”

The two also pose that what they call the “ad hoc nature” of the Syrian revolution and misguided support from external allies “has hindered the opposition’s ability to form a civilian-military cooperative body that could ably govern and regulate military action.

Here, they weigh in on why a shift is needed in America’s Syria policy, and what the Obama administration must do in order to build enough leverage to force negotiations between the Assad government and its opposition.

Syria Deeply: What are the issues you’re addressing?

Nathaniel Rosenblatt: Right now in Washington, people are looking for new ideas on what to do in Syria, and it comes from the White House asking for fresh ideas and new thinking about what’s going on. We wanted to blow open the narrow focus, the narrative that has dominated for the past year. One point we’re making is to say, let’s look back on where we’ve come from the last few years, and also what’s ahead. We wanted to structure people’s thinking into a new phase of the conflict. The various components of the conflict are becoming clear, whereas before it was, ‘Who are these factions? What’s going on?’

The second was to say, now that we’ve framed the problem, how can we think about some of the necessary tools that we need to invest in in order to continue to understand and act more confidently in the context of this conflict?

The U.S. does not do relationship building in the Middle East very well. That’s to say that we know who these groups are now, and at some point we’ve vetted them carefully, but we don’t know who they become later.

Faysal Itani: The issue is not just one of having leverage against the regime, the issue is structurally for there to be a coherent opposition for whom you can leverage to begin with, someone who can win and who you’d want to win. That’s one of the key points: it’s not just about pressuring the Iranians or the regime, but about there being a logical structure in place whose victory you’d fight for, and we said here that that doesn’t exist at the moment, and that to negotiate for a political transition in its absence is not just illogical but impossible.

SD:What does the brief recommend the U.S. government do?

NR: Our core recommendations are as follows. One is to invest in better learning. Often, we get a snapshot of the layout of these different groups. But it’s static. With the fluidity of Syria, it’s bound to change. So instead of one snapshot and then another one six months later, how do we build a moving picture of the ebbs and flows of the conflict? As we think about what the creative options are, how do we build the tools to make sense of an evolving conflict with fluid relationships and changing dynamics?

Second is that the U.S. needs to build leverage by keeping its options open. The U.S. doesn’t have leverage in Syria right now. That means that at the micro level, groups like the Islamic Front refuse to meet the US: we have nothing to give them right now, and nothing to take away. On the macro level, something like an agreement over chemical weapons destruction seemed like a good idea at time, but then we realized that there was nothing we could do to enforce it on the ground, because we don’t have that leverage.

If you say negotiations are the only way to solve the crisis but you do nothing through other channels to advance the negotiations, then there’s no reason for either side to negotiate. On the ground, there’s no motive for the regime to accede and there’s no way for the opposition to get them to do so. If you’re not willing to invest in building leverage points on both sides, then we put ourselves at a disadvantage in convening negotiations and having them be successful, or in enforcing any agreement.

If the U.S. makes it a high priority to end the conflict as soon as possible, you’re looking at something on the right side of the spectrum: military engagement in the conflict.

SD:How hard will it be for Washington to identify and vet the “right” opposition groups, by its own standards?

FI:You’d probably have to involve an organization like the Department of Defense. I don’t think this is an undertaking that the agencies who are thus far involved in a limited way in Syria could possibly take on. It would require assets on the ground.

It’s fiendishly difficult, and it’s something you can’t get right all the time. The wrong people will sometimes get weapons and money, so it’s inherently risky. But if those aren’t risks the Obama administration is willing to stomach, there’s not much anyone can do in Syria.

There are hundreds of groups operating in Syria, not dozens. Some operate under umbrellas like Jaish al Mujahideen or the Syrian Revolutionary Front. The [different affiliations] need to be disaggregated and dismantled [by people looking at the situation in Washington]. I know a lot, but I’m not on the ground in Binnish asking which group to trust and which family holds sway in Deir Ezzor.

SD: Is there anyone who’s doing that successfully at the moment?

FI:Jabhat al-Nusra’s doing that. They’ve come to grips with the social and tribal dynamics in Syria and are manipulating them with good results. In just a couple of years, they’re pulling off what took Hezbollah a long time to do in Lebanon, and they’re doing it without a government sponsor. They have really built a local sophistication and knowledge that’s quite respectable. They’ve integrated into Syria and they understand it, and that’s what the U.S. has failed to do.

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