Tony Badran

President Obama is on a collision course with his allies on Syria. As Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, France, and Britain call for more aggressive steps to topple Bashar al-Assad, the US president throws the Syrian dictator a lifeline. Obama’s policy is now clear: to use the peace process with the Russians to brush aside all calls for military involvement in Syria. This policy places US allies, eager to avoid a head-on collision with the US, in an increasingly difficult position. What is clear, however, is that the differences are gaping and obvious.

 

Nowhere was this more evident than during Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s trip to Washington. At a joint press conference with Erdogan, President Obama dispelled whatever ambiguity there might have remained about whether or not he intends to arm the Syrian opposition. The US president pointedly avoided mention of the matter. Instead, he emphasized that “the only way” to resolve the Syrian crisis is to go through the agreed framework with Moscow of a negotiated settlement with the Assad regime.

 

Before Erdogan arrived in Washington, the Turks made it known that the prime minister intended to urge the US to take more assertive action. Ankara also kept highlighting the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons, conducting tests and gathering evidence to bring to Obama, in the hope that he would act on his professed ‘red line’. Unsurprisingly, Erdogan got nothing from the US president.

 

The divergence in the Turkish and US positions was obvious at the Rose Garden. “We have views that overlap,” Erdogan said. It was a polite way of voicing that significant and disappointing differences remained on the issues that mattered to Turkey, such as arming the Syrian opposition. Obama spoke only of “humanitarian efforts” and steps being taken to strengthen the opposition “politically.” In addition, the president made clear that his ‘red line’ bluff was just that. The US will not take action in response to the regime’s use of chemical weapons. Instead, Obama reiterated that he required “specific information about what exactly is happening there.”

 

In other words, having shot down his Turkish ally’s appeals – much as he has done with all other US allies from France to Saudi Arabia – Obama presented his guest with “the only way” forward: a negotiated settlement with the regime. The only consolation for the Turkish Prime Minister was Obama’s statement that this process should somehow magically lead to Assad’s departure – not that he has bothered to spell out how that would come to pass.

 

None of this should come as a surprise. Over the last two years, Obama has used Russia to buy time and use Moscow’s veto by proxy to shoot down any call for intervention in Syria. The new US initiative with Russia is another such deflection. The present move toward the Kremlin came on the heels of Obama’s ‘red line’ fiasco. In late April, as pressure was mounting on the president to back up his ‘red line’, the administration once again resorted to leaking to the media that it was “considering” arming the rebels. But Obama, we were told, hadn’t yet decided. First, he wanted to send Secretary of State John Kerry to Moscow.

 

That trip was presented to the media as a last warning to the Russians: either reconsider your support for Assad, or we’ll consider providing lethal support to the opposition. Perhaps. Or it could be that Obama, in keeping with his established pattern, rightly reasoned that by resurrecting the Geneva communiqué with the Russians, he would kick start a process, which he could then use to put the breaks on all movement toward military involvement. It’s been a year since Geneva. Why not buy another year?

 

But it’s not just calls for US involvement that Obama has stunted with this move. Take for instance how his decision has tripped up French and British efforts to amend the European arms embargo on Syria in order to supply the rebels. The French have now signaled that they will continue to float the proposal but would delay allowing for it to take effect unless the proposed peace conference in Geneva next month fails. The French, looking at least to maintain some leverage, are trying to keep this prospect alive as a means to pressure Assad. Meanwhile the British are arguing that lifting the embargo would incentivize the Syrian opposition to buy into the process. But Paris is worried about the unclear time frame of Obama’s new process. And it has every reason to be. The head of the Syria team at the British Foreign Office, for instance, has said the process is going to be “long” and “difficult.”

 

That suits Obama’s purposes fine. And as the US invests more in this process, it is likely to press its allies to scale down their weapons supplies to the rebels, especially Islamist formations, so as not to compromise the peace process. It wouldn’t be surprising if Secretary Kerry relayed such a request to the Friends of Syria at the meeting in Jordan next week. Needless to say, the Russians have long maintained that requirement prior to any negotiation.

 

The US is already urging the Qataris to get in line and channel support exclusively through the National Coalition’s General Command, led by General Salim Idriss, with whom Washington is working to distribute its non-lethal aid. Both Kerry and Ambassador Robert Ford have been working hard to convince Idriss to send representatives of the rebels to the upcoming conference. Idriss and his colleagues will try to condition attendance on receiving military support. However, they’re likely to be given promises of such aid only in the event the peace initiative fails.

 

Whether the administration actually believes that the Russians will, or can, compel Assad to negotiate his own departure is unclear. Certainly, nothing the Kremlin has done since Kerry’s trip to Moscow indicates any interest in abandoning Assad, or in helping the US “change his calculation.” Rather, it has signaled it will send more advanced weapons systems to the embattled dictator. Russia’s objective is to allow Assad to consolidate his position in Damascus, Homs, and the coastal mountains, with massive help from Iran and Hezbollah, and negotiate from a position of strength. Ultimately, the Russians probably feel Obama might yet come around on Assad. Or, at the very least, he’d be forced to accept a fait accompli in order to restore stability and avoid an escalation of the Syrian conflict that engulfs Washington’s regional allies.

 

By now it should be clear that president Obama’s foremost interest is to avoid involvement in Syria. Frustrated with this policy, the influential Saudi columnist, Tariq al-Homayed, wrote several months ago advising concerned parties to “act as though the US was not present.” The question is whether anxious allies will continue to accommodate the US president’s preference for disengagement, to the detriment of their security and national interests.