Foreign Policy Observer

12/22/2024

The West Auditions Syria’s New Leaders

Europe and the U.S. are trying to navigate an awkward choice in Syria: work with Islamists long designated as terrorists in the West or risk ceding influence to the countries that will.

It is a familiar conundrum posed in the past by the Taliban’s ascension to power in Afghanistan and other governments with uncertain commitments to human rights. Diplomats from Washington and European capitals took their first steps into Damascus this week, all trying to assess whether they can trust the emerging transitional government being formed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, the Sunni-Islamist group that led the coalition of fighters that toppled the Assad regime.

The militant group was formed as an offshoot of al Qaeda, and its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa was an anti-American jihadist in Iraq who spent five years in an American-run prison camp there. He disavowed extremism years ago and has pledged to respect Syria’s ethnic and religious diversity.

Western powers are wary. Before lifting sanctions against HTS and Syria, they are looking for commitments to dispose of the chemical weapons left over from former President Bashar al-Assad’s despotic rule, protect women and minority groups and fight against extremists like Islamic State that could flourish in Syria’s power vacuum. They also want to return some of the millions of Syrian refugees who fled the war. But Western countries don’t want Syria’s new government to fall under the sway of other powers with interests there like Russia and Iran.

“Western states are quickly coming to the conclusion that they have to engage with HTS despite its terrorist listing,” said Julien Barnes-Dacey, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The State Department’s top Middle East official, Barbara Leaf, and special presidential envoy for hostage affairs Roger Carstens met Sharaa in Damascus on Friday in the first visit to the Syrian capital by U.S. diplomats since Assad’s regime crumbled on Dec. 8.

Leaf told reporters that Sharaa committed to preventing terrorist groups from posing a threat to Syria or the U.S. and its regional partners. Based on that she said the U.S. decided to drop a $10 million bounty it placed on him several years ago. The U.S. has around 2,000 troops in the country largely to contain Islamic State and other extremist groups.

She said she also communicated the importance of broad consultation in the transition to a new government that represents and includes women as well as Syria’s diverse ethnic and religious communities. She described the discussion with Sharaa as “quite good, very productive, detailed,” and said Sharaa came across as pragmatic. “We will judge by deeds, not just by words,” Leaf said.

Before the meeting, Richard Grenell, who President-elect Donald Trump named last week as his envoy for special missions, criticized the trip, saying the Biden administration should stand aside and coordinate with the incoming president.

Diplomats from the U.S., U.K., France and Germany also visited Damascus this week. One European diplomat said HTS made clear that it is trying to push Iranian influence out of the country and is looking to rebuild existing state institutions with the help of Syrians in the diaspora, rather than replacing them from scratch. The diplomat said that Syria’s new leaders will likely make mistakes due to their inexperience with governing but they seem focused on reconstruction.

British officials sense that the former rebels want reform and don’t want to run a tyrannical state, a U.K. diplomat who met with the group said, but they worry about whether HTS will actually do as it says.

HTS has enormous tasks ahead of it and will need international support and funds to rebuild the country and its government, restart the economy, and resettle millions of refugees. The group, which is broadly aligned with Turkey, is also negotiating with Russia over the presence of Moscow’s important military bases on its Mediterranean coast. Syria also shares a volatile border with Israel, which has stationed troops on Syrian territory and destroyed much of the country’s military assets with a bombing campaign after the Assad regime fell.

Among the biggest tasks for Western countries is assessing whether they should lift sanctions imposed after the start of the civil war in 2011 and remove the terrorist designation for HTS.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. has been in direct contact with HTS since it seized power. He has urged HTS to usher in a moderate, inclusive and nonsectarian government. The Taliban has become a pariah since it reimposed strict Islamic rule on Afghanistan after the chaotic U.S. departure in 2021, he reminded them.

“If you don’t want that isolation, then there are certain things that you have to do in moving the country forward,” Blinken said this week.

HTS has detained political opponents, tortured prisoners and committed extrajudicial killings in northwestern Syria, territory it partially controlled before Assad’s fall, according to a report by the United Nations’ Syria Commission of Inquiry released earlier this year.

Despite HTS’s pledge to protect minorities in Syria, some of them have expressed anxiety over life under an Islamist group.

Sharaa, who recently dropped his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, told foreign journalists shortly after seizing the Syrian capital that the new government plans to begin a process of reconstruction, reconciliation and overhauling the country’s constitution and institutions. He cautioned that it would take time. Sharaa has called on the West to lift sanctions and remove the group’s terrorist designation so the new government could access more funds to rebuild the country.

“It is too early to say whether the new leadership will be able to deliver what they promised,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday.

Von der Leyen earlier this week said the EU would assist with restoring basic services such as electricity and water and had increased aid to over 160 million euros, or about $166 million, for this year. The first humanitarian goods sent by air are expected to arrive this week, she said.

France hoisted its flag in a diplomatic compound abandoned after Syria’s civil war began in 2011. Some member states, including the Netherlands, are pushing for the EU to link a restoration of ties with action by the new Syrian authorities to reduce or end the presence of Russian forces and bases in the country.

Senior U.S. diplomats visit Damascus, as Washington and Brussels weigh lifting sanctions against the country’s transitional government.

12/22/2024

12/22/2024

As the country approaches three years of full-scale war with Russia, and waits uneasily for the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, an acute personnel shortage at the front presents a dilemma.

Depleted army is increasingly made up of older men, but Zelenskyy is reluctant to lower mobilisation age from 25

12/22/2024

Human Rights Watch is accusing Israel of committing acts of extermination and genocide by deliberately restricting safe water for drinking and sanitation to the Gaza Strip. The report details how Israel has cut off water and blocked fuel, food and humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip, and deliberately destroyed or damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials.

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/19/hrw_gaza_genocide_water_deprivation?

Human Rights Watch is accusing Israel of committing acts of extermination and genocide by deliberately restricting safe water for drinking and sanitation to the Gaza Strip. The report details how Israel has cut off water and blocked fuel, food and humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip, and d...

12/21/2024

For Syria’s Economy, the Way Forward Starts With Sanctions Relief

Although the collapse of President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria was shockingly quick, rebuilding the devastated economy he left behind will be painfully slow.

After nearly 14 years of brutal civil war and political repression, most of Syria’s oil and gas wells, roads, electricity grids, farmland and infrastructure are in ruins. Ninety percent of the population is living in poverty. The value of the Syrian pound has plummeted, and the central bank’s reserves of foreign currency — needed to buy essentials like food, fuel and spare parts — are nearly depleted.

Before the war, oil accounted for two-thirds of Syria’s exports and agriculture made up roughly a quarter of economic activity. More recently, Syria’s most profitable export was captagon, an illegal, addictive amphetamine controlled by a cartel of politically connected elites.

“The whole economic system in Syria is not functioning,” said Samir Aita, a Syrian economist and the president of the Circle of Arab Economists.

Ahmed al-Shara, the leader of the rebel coalition that has taken power in Syria, has a daunting task ahead to unify the rebel factions, reconstitute the government, re-establish the rule of law, provide security and manage essential services like the distribution of water and other scarce resources.

Even so, there is widespread agreement that the single most important step in rebuilding Syria’s economy can be taken only by the United States: Lift the punishing layers of sanctions that have effectively cut off Syria from international commerce and investment.

U.S. restrictions imposed in 2019 on financial flows were intended to punish the Assad regime. Now, they are cutting Syria off from money it desperately needs for reconstruction and economic development. Families and relief organizations cannot send assistance; refugees cannot transfer money from Western bank accounts to invest in a home or business; the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank cannot offer aid.

Lifting sanctions, even with temporary waivers, “is a priority,” Mr. Aita said.

Ending all financial restrictions would also mean removing the terrorist designation placed on Mr. al-Shara and his organization, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, by the United States and the United Nations. Washington and its allies are sure to offer that prospect as a bargaining chip. But ultimately, Mr. al-Shara, who has a $10 million bounty on his head for his previous links to Al Qaeda, cannot effectively function as a head of state if he is labeled a terrorist.

This week, Geir Pedersen, the United Nations’ special envoy for Syria, said rebel leaders had issued “reassuring statements” about forming a government of “unity and inclusiveness.”

Washington has other economic cards to play. The center of oil production and the functioning wells that remain are in Syria’s northeast, territory controlled by a Kurdish-led militia backed by the United States.

Oil previously provided around half of the country’s revenues, said Joshua Landis, co-director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Those fields, he said, belong to the government in Damascus and should be returned to its control.

Resurrecting oil and gas production will not be easy. Before the war, Syria produced 383,000 barrels a day. Now, it produces less than 90,000, according to the World Bank. Facilities and pipelines, including those that deliver energy to Iraq, Jordan and Egypt, have been destroyed or damaged. The country has been importing more oil than it exports.

David Goldwyn, a senior energy official in the Obama administration, said Syria’s government would need to clearly establish that it owned and had the right sell those resources. Then it must be able to ensure security so that infrastructure can be repaired and operated.

The other challenge, he said, will be attracting foreign companies or operators who have the resources and know-how to rebuild.

Security is essential not only for oil and gas production, but also to draw back many of the eight million refugees who fled the fighting. Attracting those with education, skills and resources to return is crucial for Syria’s revival.

“Syrians with money are key,” said Dr. Landis at the University of Oklahoma, but many of them will not return if there is no electricity or rule of law.

Syria’s neighbors also have a keen interest in the return of refugees and in rebuilding. Turkey, which shares a border with Syria and hosts more than three million refugees, is best placed and has the most influence.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who supported the rebels and funded a group allied with Mr. al-Shara, is looking to extend his influence there. He also has close ties to Turkey’s construction industry, and he is likely to push for reconstruction contracts and provide rebuilding assistance, said Henri Barkey, an international relations professor at Lehigh University.

The stocks in Turkish construction, cement and steel companies shot up after the Assad government fell.

At the moment, Syria’s economic future depends on the ability of the government in Damascus to consolidate control and establish its legitimacy — to the satisfaction of not only its own diverse population but also the United States and allies that have the final word on sanctions.

Years of strife ruined the energy sector, battered the currency and strangled growth. The West must ease financial controls to help the economy, experts say.

12/21/2024

https://www.reuters.com/world/top-us-officials-damascus-meet-new-syrian-rulers-state-department-says-2024-12-20/

Senior U.S. diplomats visiting Damascus on Friday met with Syria's de-facto new ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa and held a "good" and "very productive" meeting with him about Syria's political transition and decided to remove a bounty on his head.

12/21/2024

Moon of Alabama:

Mainstream seem to have largely stopped to report about Gaza. But the Zionist genocide of the people in Gaza continues. Haaretz continues to document how the Zionist forces on the ground do it.

It is not just the arbitrary killing of everyone in sight within some kill corridor but the systematic deprivation of the whole population of water, food and medical necessities.

12/20/2024

James George Jatras:

[T]he Russians didn’t behave as the West had anticipated. Instead, it’s clear their approach was “pedagogical” from the start: show the West they mean business so they’ll come to the table. It is also suggested that a deal, not a military resolution, would be preferable to Putin’s BRICS partners, whose opinion he can’t afford to ignore.

The frustration this approach has caused in the Russian military and in large sectors of the public is well known. That said, as observed by Moscow-based John Helmer, Putin may deem that his high levels of public support allow him to accept a settlement that falls short of, or at least redefines, his SMO goals as originally stated. It’s an open question whether that support could be sustained when (inevitably, in my opinion) the West contemptuously disregards its obligations under whatever is agreed-to.

Some say Putin has finally learned his lesson about the West. Others say not, that he would jump at any remotely reasonable transaction proffered by Trump & Co., Inc. We will soon see.

“I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.” – Winston Churchill, 1942 Many Americans, even a lot who never much cared for Donald Trump, voted for him in part because they believed – or at least hoped – that…

12/20/2024

Douglas Macgregor:

Peace is not at hand in the Middle East, and Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu remains determined to expand the war. Syria’s de facto partition into Israeli and Turkish territories is the prelude to wider war with Iran. As the Times of Israel reported last week, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) has “continued to increase its readiness and preparations” for “potential strikes in Iran.”

Netanyahu’s top priority is the destruction of Iran before Russia wraps up its victory in Ukraine and Syria becomes a new battleground for Turks and Israelis. It’s not simply the end of Washington’s “rules-based international order.” It’s the onset of chaos. Israeli forces and Turkish auxiliaries (i.e. the Islamist terrorists who sacked Syria) are already staring at each other across a demarcation line that runs east–west just south of Damascus. Netanyahu harbors no illusions about the conflict between Ankara’s long-term strategic aims in the region and Jerusalem’s determination to claim the Syrian spoils of war.

In addition to serious financial trouble and societal discontent on the home front, President-elect Donald Trump now confronts the dangerous distraction of wars he did not start, wars that will bring his administration and his country no strategic benefit.

The U.S. is at risk of being buffaloed into a bloody war of regional realignment in the wake of Syria’s collapse.

12/20/2024

Putin, fielding questions on state TV during his annual question and answer session with Russians, told a reporter for a U.S. news channel that he was ready to meet Trump, whom he said he had not spoken to for years.

Asked what he might be able to offer Trump, Putin dismissed an assertion that Russia was in a weak position, saying that Russia had got much stronger since he ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022.

"We have always said that we are ready for negotiations and compromises," Putin said, after saying that Russian forces, advancing across the entire front, were moving towards achieving their primary goals in Ukraine.

"Soon, those Ukrainians who want to fight will run out, in my opinion, soon there will be no one left who wants to fight. We are ready, but the other side needs to be ready for both negotiations and compromises."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that he was ready to compromise over Ukraine in possible talks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on ending the war and had no conditions for starting talks with the Ukrainian authorities.

12/20/2024

Russia and Turkey backed opposing sides in Syria’s civil war that started in 2011, putting them on a collision course. Tensions spiraled when a Turkish fighter jet shot down a Russian warplane near the Turkey-Syria border in November 2015, soon after Moscow launched its air campaign to support Assad.

The Kremlin responded with sweeping economic sanctions that halted Turkish imports, drove Turkish companies from the lucrative Russian market and cut the flow of Russian tourists to Turkey’s resorts.

Faced with massive economic damage, Erdogan apologized months later. Soon after, Putin staunchly supported him when he faced an attempted military coup in July 2016, helping to warm ties quickly.

In 2018, Moscow and Ankara negotiated a ceasefire and de-escalation deal for the rebel-held Idlib province in northwestern Syria on the border with Turkey and sought to anchor the often-violated agreement with follow-up deals in the next few years.
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Cagaptay observed that while Turkey would like to see an end to Russia’s military presence in Syria, Ankara’s position will depend on how relations evolve with Washington.

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Syrian opposition fighters celebrate after the government of Bashar Assad collapses in Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)

“If we see a reset in U.S.-Turkish ties where Turkey thinks it can comfortably lean on the U.S. against Russia, I can see Erdogan adopting a kind of more boisterous tone vis a vis Putin,” he said.

But if the U.S. maintains its alliance with the Kurds and stands against Turkey’s effort to push back on Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria, “Ankara may decide that it needs to continue to play all sides as it has been doing for about a decade now,” Cagaptay said.

The rapid downfall of Syrian leader Bashar Assad has touched off a new round of delicate geopolitical maneuvering between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

12/18/2024

On Nov. 29, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Sky News that he was willing to cede territory to Russia to end the war if NATO agreed to terms.

Kyiv’s Western backers are concerned about growing public discontent with Zelensky, whose public trust among Ukrainians has declined over the last year. The problem is that Zelensky fired the person Ukrainians appear to trust the most, former commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhny — some say because Zaluzhny was becoming too popular.

It is not just the protracted nature of the two-plus-year conflict that is a concern; it is also the current leadership’s inability to make material gains in resolving it. This has become especially acute since the Ukrainian president’s term in office expired last May — with no announcement about any forthcoming elections.

U.S. and top European officials have, for some time, been in discussions with Kyiv about possible peace negotiations with Moscow. Moreover, Stephen Bryen, former deputy undersecretary of Defense and a leading expert in security strategy says, “There is a growing consensus” that Western leaders want to replace Zelensky.

Barring any last-minute sabotage from the West (again), it appears the Ukrainian president might have just “blinked.”

12/18/2024

But just how ethnically Anglo-Saxon are the pro-war parties in America? In France, Jewish neo-conservative Bernard Henri-Levi can be viewed as the most unapologetically pro-war public figure in the country. In the UK, media fixture Paul Mason, also of Jewish ancestry, has recently penned an article calling for Britain to declare war on Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. These pro-war voices have no base of popular support and the electorate regularly rejects them, yet they continue to get their way.

The ethnography of warmongers in America follows in this pattern. Jewish sociologist Eric Kaufmann’s work, The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America, details how the historic WASP elite was uninstalled as the dominant power bloc and removed from most American institutions by the end of the 1960s. When observing the outgoing Biden administration, we see largely a panel of Jewish actors steering the American ship globally, while the incoming Trump administration has placed figures such as billionaire Zionists Howard Lutnick and Miriam Adelson in charge of appointing a cabinet of obedient politicians and various celebrity-seeking self-promoters vetted for their ability to read a script and look good on television without asking any questions.

Pushed out of institutions, prominent WASPs such as Tucker Carlson have reconstituted themselves as critics of the American empire, much like ethnic Russian patriots like Alexander Solzhenitsyn developed into leading opponents of the Soviet empire. WASPs who were once held in good-standing with the American regime, such as Carlson, Douglas MacGregor, and Michael Hudson, are today some of the most prominent critics of America’s support for Israel and do not hide their sympathies for Russia.

At a recent briefing of the Russian SVR, the Kremlin’s intelligence agency disclosed information suggesting a recalibration of American and British backed media entities and NGOs, who have been instructed by their handlers to launch an information assault seeking to recreate the Ukraine conflict i...

12/18/2024

The Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) announced the start of an operation against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northern Syrian town of Kobani (Ayn al-Arab) on 17 December.

The announcement came in the midst of a build-up of Turkish troops on the Syrian border in preparation for a possible invasion alongside its proxies in the SNA.

US officials warn that a 'cross border operation is imminent' as Turkiye amasses its troops on its southern border

12/18/2024

John Helmer

The general public mood, as measured by Levada between November 2 and 27, is overwhelmingly positive and confident – 72% of Russians believe the country is going in the right direction; only 18% think it’s headed in the wrong direction.

In this domestic atmosphere, Putin is calculating there is no good reason for him to mention the Russian military withdrawal from Syria, or to answer press questions of why he decided to evacuate Russian bases in the country, allow Israel to destroy Syria’s military and industrial infrastructure, and accept Israeli, Turkish and American takeover of Syria’s sovereignty, territory, and natural wealth, particularly water and oil.

A Moscow source comments: “I think the Russian public will not be convinced to risk a presence there especially when the propaganda has changed its tune to the line, ‘it’s impossible to help those who can’t help themselves.’ With Syrian statehood gone, this battle is lost.”

by John Helmer, Moscow President Vladimir Putin gave a party rally speech in Moscow on Saturday in which he omitted to mention s

12/18/2024

The End Game in Ukraine

No matter who won the presidential election, the war in Ukraine was likely to end next year. Both Ukraine and Russia are running out of troops and struggling to call up more young men for the front lines. That reality always meant that 2025 would be a year of negotiations.

Donald Trump’s victory will hasten those peace talks. During the campaign, Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine even before his inauguration. Maybe that was a bit of exaggeration. But it’s clear he wants negotiations to begin soon.

That’s bad news for Ukraine. Russian forces are advancing in the east. They’ve also reclaimed some of the Russian territory that Ukraine captured this past summer. Ukraine still has weapons, but its troops are spread thin. Intelligence agencies think it will run out of soldiers soon.

In today’s newsletter, I will look at four questions that will shape the conflict next year — and how Trump’s victory affects them.

1. Can Ukraine keep fighting?

Ukrainian officials insist they are ready to keep fighting. But Republicans are loath to approve more aid for Ukraine, and Kyiv knows that without substantially more aid combat will end soon.

Does Europe have the political will, and the defense industrial might, to replace the United States? At a NATO summit before the election, allies devised a plan to Trump-proof logistical support for Ukraine.

Biden administration officials, however, doubt that Europe can step up. The economic might of the dollar allows Washington to run huge budget deficits to pay for defense. That’s something Europe cannot do. Once American support disappears, it will be hard for Europe to muster the munitions or the funding at a level that can keep Ukraine in the fight.

2. What about the territory Russia seized?

Without more weapons and soldiers, Ukraine may not recover the land it lost to Russia. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, knows this: He acknowledged recently that diplomacy, not the current “hot” war, will be how Ukraine recovers its territory.

In a podcast interview during the presidential campaign, JD Vance proposed freezing the conflict and letting Russia keep what it took by force. Its president, Vladimir Putin, does not seem intent on capturing vastly more territory right now, but he has shown no sign that he is willing to withdraw from the parts of Ukraine he controls. Ukraine’s one bargaining chip is Kursk, the Russian region that Kyiv’s forces partially occupied in August.

The Biden administration is trying to put Ukraine in the best bargaining position. The White House is pushing as many weapons to Ukraine as it can. It gave Ukraine permission to fire American-made long-range missiles into Russia in hopes it could hold Kursk. If it does, maybe Russia will hand back some Ukrainian territory in a trade. But Kyiv is unlikely to recover most of the land it has lost.

3. What guarantees can Ukraine get?

For Ukraine, victory or defeat is not really about a particular parcel of terrain. It’s about the agreements it might secure with Europe and America — for its long-term security and its economic integration with the West. The most ironclad guarantee, NATO membership, is off the table. Trump won’t offer it. A Republican-led Senate with many Trump loyalists won’t approve it.

Vance has proposed neutrality for Ukraine, a key Putin demand. Trump has not detailed his position here. It’s unlikely that he would back Ukraine militarily in the case of a future attack. But Trump may want to be seen as extracting a concession from Putin. He may look beyond Ukraine for such a win — something unrelated to the war. Perhaps he could prod Putin to allow Ukraine some economic integration with Europe, for instance. Putin wouldn’t like that, but it would be a better alternative for him than Ukraine’s entry into NATO.

4. Could Putin take Kyiv?

Here is where the fears of Zelensky and Trump may align. Ukrainians have long said that if they make a deal to end the war now, Putin will simply rest his army, restock and come back for the rest of Ukraine later.

Trump has repeatedly criticized President Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal. Trump likely doesn’t want a similar legacy: a Russian takeover of Kyiv that lets Democrats say that he lost Ukraine. Republican defenders of Ukraine, a dying breed, argue that Trump never likes to look weak and won’t settle for a deal that gives Putin a free hand. But it’s hard to envision that Putin would make a promise to stay away that Kyiv could count on. (Past promises by Russia to respect Ukrainian sovereignty were worthless.) So protecting Kyiv will be the most difficult, and most important, part of the Trump negotiations.

How the war could come to a close next year.