Flying to Moscow for a last-ditch plea to Russian President Vladimir Putin to oust Syrian President Bashar-al Assad, 70-year-old Secretary of State John Kerry sees his options dwindling. President Barack Obama sent Kerry his marching orders to get Putin to throw his long-standing ally under the bus. Putin made his position clear Dec. 15, 2015 when Kerry last met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Putin would not sell out al-Assad. Obama rubber-stamps Saudi King Salman’s High Negotiation Committee’s demands, through the Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, that al-Assad must go. Putin told Kerry last December in Moscow that toppling al-Assad would destabilize the region, leading to more anarchy and chaos. Putin made the same point Sept. 28, 2015 to the U.N. General Assembly that overthrowing al-Assad would repeat the same mistakes as Iraq and Libya.
Obama has pushed the Saudi proxy war against al-Assad’s Shiite government for the last five years. Calling it a “civil war,” the White House convinced its European allies that al-Assad was responsible for the lion’s share of the 250,000 deaths and millions of refugees flooding neighboring countries. Called the worst humanitarian crisis since WWII, the Syria war is indirectly responsible for the spread of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, now menacing Europe with terror attacks. Lashing out in Brussels March 20, ISIS let the U.S. and European Union know that it didn’t like the policy of going after ISIS’s Abu Bakr al-Baghadadi’s Wahhabi caliphate. Hitting Istanbul March 18 with a suicide attack, ISIS fired a shot across NATO’s bow, letting the EU know that no one’s safe from its deadly reach. Monday’s attack, only blocks from EU headquarters, was heard loud-and-clear.
When Kerry meets with Putin tomorrow, the discussion will quickly detour to fighting “terrorism,” not backing the Saudi’s demand to get rid of al-Assad. Beating back the Saudi insurgency in Syria with relentless air strikes, Putin announced after the Feb. 27 U.S., EU and Russian-brokered ceasefire that he would withdraw some Russian assets from Syria. Before tomorrow’s meeting, Lavrov said he hoped the U.S. and Europe would stop its “geopolitical games,” referring directly to Saudi Arabia’s support of Syrian opposition groups trying to oust al-Assad. Before the Feb. 27 ceasefire, Putin had Saudi-backed opposition groups on the ropes, agreeing only to a ceasefire because they faced certain defeat. Lavrov made his thoughts known to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter-Steinmeier before meeting with Kerry tomorrow to plead the Saudi case over the fate of al-Assad.
U.S. officials join the EU in blaming al-Assad for all the civilian deaths in Syria over the last five years. Putin and Lavrov have reminded the U.S. and EU that the war against al-Assad originated in Saudi Arabia during the so-called Arab Spring, where the Kingdom financed insurgencies to topple Mideast dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and now Syria. Putin told the U.N. General Assembly that Iraq War and Arab Spring caused much to today’s chaos in the Middle East. Kerry has a tough sell to Putin getting him to back the Geneva “peace talks” led by U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura seeking any possible way to placate Riyadh. After Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 fighter jet Nov. 25, 2015, Putin hasn’t been receptive to Saudi Arabia or Turkey. Pleading the Saudi’s case at the Kremlin isn’t likely to change minds, only reinforce the West’s enmity toward Russia.
Kerry decided to try one last time to salvage the fragile ceasefire and even more fragile Geneva peace talks. “I really hope the Europeans, in the face the terrible threat that occurred yesterday in Brussels, will put aside their geopolitical games and untie to prevent terrorists from acting on our continent,” said Lavrov. Putin and Lavrov make little distinction from Saudi-backed rebel groups, like Jaysh al-Islam, ISIS and al-Qaeda’s al-Nusra front, all have toppling al-Assad in common. Neither Obama nor Kerry have explained how the U.S. could possibly back the same goal of the world’s most virulent terror groups in toppling al-Assad’s Shiite regime. Putin’s less concerned about the Saudi’s sectarian war pitting Sunnies against Shiites, than keeping a radical Sunni regime from taking over Damascus. Asking Putin to back the Saudi’s High Negotiation Committee’s demand to oust al-Assad is unrealistic.
Instead of pressuring Putin to back the Saudi proxy war against al-Assad, the U.S. should be telling the Saudis that they can’t call the shots in Geneva. Once Putin went to al-Assad’s defense Sept. 30, 2015, the U.S. and EU complained about Moscow going after Saudi-backed insurgent groups, not ISIS or al-Qaeda. Watching Islamic terrorists decimate Paris Nov. 13, 2015 and now Belgium, Russia sees things differently from the U.S. and EU. “The fight against this evil calls for the most active international cooperation,” said the Kremlin in advance of Kerry’s trip. Also on Kerry’s mind is getting Putin to follow the Sept. 2, 2014 Minsk 2 Protocol, calling for Moscow to contain Russian separatists in exchange for autonomous rule. Kerry fears that if Putin doesn’t give in on ousting al-Assad, Saudi-backed rebel groups will break the casefire and restart the war against al-Assad.
