After Iran Deal, U.S.

Bids to Revive Peace

Talks on Syria
Washington hopes the Iran nuclear accord and the
Assad regimes battlefield defeats could create a new
opening for diplomacy.

BY DAN DE LUCE-AUGUST 10, 2015

The United States has launched a fresh attempt to revive peace talks designed to end
the four-year Syrian civil war, hoping to capitalize on the aftermath of the Iran nuclear
accord and the battlefield setbacks of the regime in Damascus.
U.S. officials cautioned that the effort led by Secretary of State John Kerry was at an
early stage and like previous diplomatic attempts could end in failure due to the
deep differences that still separate the main players and their patrons in the multisided
conflict. And officials said Washington wasnt offering a specific peace proposal and
didnt have a timeline for developing one.
As the primary backer and lifeline for Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assads regime, Iran
could hold the key to any sort of peaceful settlement of the civil war that has claimed

more than 200,000 lives and sent millions of Syrians fleeing into other countries. But
as long as the delicate nuclear talks were underway, U.S. diplomats had been
reluctant to engage Tehran on Syria to avoid giving the Iranians possible leverage that
could have strengthened their bargaining position in the negotiations.
agreement between world powers and Iran was clinched on July 14, it opened a
possible door albeit a narrow one to diplomacy on the Syrian conflict, Obama
administration officials said." style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;
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inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">After the
nuclear agreement between world powers and Iran was clinched on July 14, it opened
a possible door albeit a narrow one to diplomacy on the Syrian conflict, Obama
administration officials said.
Getting beyond the nuclear deal is a first step to starting a dialogue on Syria, a
senior administration official told Foreign Policy.
Days after the nuclear accord was unveiled, Kerry suggested that Irans leadership
appeared ready for discussions on regional issues and that it was worth exploring
the opportunity.
My judgment is that there are possibilities there, but Im not going to promise them, I
cant tell you where theyll go, and Im not betting on them, he said.
As part of the renewed American push, Kerry has been discreetly reaching out to his
counterparts in Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab states in the Persian Gulf
to see if there are grounds to breathe life into a potential peace process. Turkey and
the Gulf monarchies have backed various Sunni rebels in the Syrian civil war and long
focused on Assads ouster, though the nations are increasingly invested in the U.S.-led
fight against the Islamic State.
There are a lot of quiet conversations going on, the U.S. official said. You will see
more movement on this.
Apart from the nuclear deal, the Assad regimes deteriorating position on the ground
has also given its main patrons Russia and Iran new doubts about whether the
Syrian ruler can hold onto power, officials said. That, in turn, is spurring Moscow and
Beijing to work harder on a possible diplomatic solution.
With battlefield losses in recent months in northwest, central, and southern Syria, the
Assad regime is at its weakest point since 2012, the official said.
Assad himself has publicly acknowledged that his army can no longer secure parts of
the country. The government troops and Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia
have suffered serious casualties and lost key battles in Idlib, eastern Homs province,
and in the south at Deraa, and the regime appears to be retrenching to western
strongholds, including Damascus and the Alawite heartland along the Mediterranean
coast, which account for barely a fifth of the country.
Although the regime is not on the verge of collapse, theyre tired, [and] theyre

overstretched, the official said.

President Barack Obama told the New York Times on July 14 that Russia appeared
more open to discussions on Syria as it recognized the Assad regime is losing a grip
over greater and greater swaths of territory inside of Syria.
He added: That offers us an opportunity to have a serious conversation with them.
The effort to start those conversations got a boost on Aug. 6 when the United States
persuaded Russia to back a United Nations resolution setting up an independent
panel to identify suspects behind ongoing chlorine chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
Western officials and independent chemical weapons experts contend that the Assad
government has been routinely dropping chlorine-filled bombs on towns under rebel
control throughout Syria. But U.S. efforts to attribute the attacks to Damascus have run
into opposition from Moscow, which has spent years protecting Assad at the United
Nations and claims that Syrian insurgents are also using toxic agents.
The agreement represented a modest step forward as it signaled a degree of flexibility
in Russias long-standing support for the Syrian regime, diplomats said.
It reveals an evolution of the position of Russia, which up until now has been
protecting the Syrian regime from any finger-pointing or blame, a Security Council
diplomat said.
In another sign of a possible shift, Russia announced an invitation to the Syrian
National Coalition, the countrys main opposition group, for talks in Moscow later this
month.
The cooperation between Washington and Moscow on the U.N. resolution came amid
a flurry of diplomacy surrounding the Syrian conflict.
Kerry discussed Syria with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Saudi Arabian
Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir in Doha on Aug. 3. And Kerry and Lavrov held
another meeting two days later on the sidelines of a summit in Kuala Lumpur.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, meanwhile, flew to Tehran, where
he met Syrian and Iranian foreign ministers on Aug. 5 and then headed to Oman the
next day.
Oman, which maintains friendly ties with both Shiite-ruled Iran and Sunni Arab
monarchies in the Persian Gulf, emerged as a pivotal interlocutor for the United States
in the nuclear negotiations between Tehran and world powers. And the small kingdom
still has diplomatic relations with the Syrian regime, unlike other Gulf States.
Although the combination of military defeats for the regime and the nuclear deal with
Iran has cleared the way for a new diplomatic effort, the prospects for success
remained uncertain and fraught with risks, officials said.
Theres a more concerted effort to get a political solution there through diplomacy,
said another administration official familiar with the talks.

But he added: Theres no hyper optimism here. Theres a more keen focus on it.
Previous peace talks sponsored by the United Nations and Russia have collapsed
over the past four years. Opposition rebels, and their supporters in Turkey and Saudi
Arabia, have demanded Assads removal and a dismantling of his security services,
while Russia and Iran have previously ruled out forcing Assad to relinquish power.
The United States has long said that Assad must step down. But since January,
Washington has hinted that it would be willing to accept an arrangement in which the
Syrian ruler would stay on temporarily until the end of a political transition.
For their part, Iran and Russia are keenly aware that Assads regime is increasingly
hemmed in by an array of rebel groups, though they are not ready to abandon him,
U.S. intelligence officials said.
However, it is logical that they will begin to consider post-Assad options, an
intelligence official told FP.
Iran, which has funneled billions in aid to Damascus as well as weapons and military
advisors, sees Syria as a crucial strategic buffer that must never be allowed to fall
under the rule of a Sunni-led government.
Having thrown its full weight behind the Damascus regime, there is no indication yet
that Tehran is ready to dramatically alter its position over Syria, analysts and former
U.S. officials said.
I dont see any sign, based on what the Iranians are saying both publicly and
privately, that they are looking to negotiate a serious change, said Robert Ford, who
was the last U.S. ambassador to serve in Syria before relations collapsed.
Iran recently announced it would present a peace plan for Syria this month to the
United Nations, but Tehran has said the outline is a revised version of a previous
proposal which did not call for Assads ouster.
The conclusion of the nuclear accord with Iran removed a possible impediment to
peace talks on Syria, but it also will ease sanctions on Tehran that could enable it to
bolster its support for the Assad regime and undermine any negotiations, Ford said.
They will almost certainly use a portion of those [funds] to help Assad and his allies,
said Ford, now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
Even as it pushes for a new round of diplomacy, the United States has only limited
leverage in a conflict that it has tried to keep at arms length. Unlike Turkey, which has
extensive ties to a number of opposition rebel groups, Washington has trained and
armed only a small number of fighters who have had no major impact on the war.
A senior rebel commander last week bluntly dismissed the Pentagons new training
program, which has placed less than 60 fighters into the field despite plans for a
15,000-strong force.
The project is very slow, Capt. Ammar al-Wawi told the BBC. If it takes this long to

train 60, it will take decades to get everyone ready.

The Obama administration has faced criticism from its allies in the region for choosing
not to intervene in the civil war. And critics argue inaction allowed a chaotic vacuum to
develop, creating fertile ground for militants from the Islamic State to seize ground
inside Syria and later overrun much of neighboring Iraq.
Even if American diplomats find some sliver of common ground with their Iranian
counterparts on the Syrian conflict, they will face deep suspicions from Sunni Arab
countries already anxious about the implications of Washingtons nuclear accord with
their rivals in Tehran.
Any diplomatic progress with Iran over Syria would confirm fears in the Gulf that
Washington is plotting to tilt its strategic approach in the Middle East towards Iran, said
Ilan Goldenberg, a former senior State Department official.
Before any potential diplomatic breakthrough, he added, the Obama administration will
have to do more to reassure its Arab allies that there is no tectonic shift under way in
its foreign policy.
First you have to demonstrate to all sides that this isnt a pivot to Persia, Goldenberg
said. And then you can have a negotiation.
Colum Lynch and Sen Naylor contributed to this report.
Photo credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images
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