On Syria, John Kerry is left out on a limb

The effectiveness of the Obama administration’s strategy in Syria is dependent on there being a good relationship between President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. While nothing suggests there are problems on that front, Obama has limited interest in the matter that preoccupies the secretary most today: Syria.

Earlier this week, after meeting with Poland’s foreign minister, Kerry commented on efforts to hold an international conference on Syria in Geneva: “This is a very difficult process, which we come to late.” To many this was implicit criticism of the administration’s repeated efforts to avoid engaging with the Syrian crisis. Kerry added, “We are trying to prevent the sectarian violence from dragging Syria down into a complete and total implosion where it has broken up into enclaves, and the institutions of the state have been destroyed, with God knows how many additional refugees and how many innocent people killed.”

This breakdown has been going on for over two years, and has been characterized by all the alarming elements Kerry described. For him to suddenly outline the dangers seemed more a subtle criticism of how the Syrian situation was allowed to reach such a stage than acknowledgement of a fundamentally new approach in Washington.

The question is whether Kerry has much latitude to push the United States in directions that Obama hesitates to allow. The Obama White House has tightly controlled the foreign policy agenda in recent years. Hillary Clinton was influential enough to have her way on certain issues, but one thing she frequently had trouble doing was enrolling the president in efforts to advance her recommended policies.

Kerry may be less effective. He was not Obama’s first choice as secretary of state, and the president has been largely silent on Kerry’s efforts to organize the Geneva II conference. That’s ironic, because Kerry agreed to it with the Russians partly in order to lessen the pressure on the president to intervene in Syria, after Bashar Assad’s forces allegedly used chemical weapons against the rebels.

The president has also said nothing about Kerry’s attempt to resume negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. It is understandable that Obama does not want to put his name to politically risky courses of action that might fail; but without more presidential commitment, the momentum that Kerry requires to get both projects rolling will not be forthcoming, thwarting the secretary’s political aims.

For instance, there were reports Tuesday that France and the United Nations had concluded that the Syrian regime used limited quantities of chemical weapons in fighting near Aleppo some months ago. The White House once again stuck its head in the sand. The spokesman, Jay Carney, said, “[w]e need more information” that allows the administration to “establish a body of information that can be presented and reviewed, and upon which policy decisions can be made.” There was a man throwing out chaff to buy Obama room to maneuver. Indeed the administration has yet to gather such a body of information, and has set no deadline for doing so.

In that context you have to wonder what leverage Kerry really has. The Obama administration, probably with Kerry’s approval, has withheld $63 million slated for the Syrian opposition, angry with its refusal to attend the Geneva conference while Hezbollah continues to fight on Syrian territory. The opposition decision was unwise, since it embarrassed Washington and by way of contrast made the Assad regime, which has agreed to attend the conference, look flexible.

However, publicly undermining the opposition is not the way to go. It strengthens a regime that has long fought America in the Middle East, and it weakens America’s diplomatic hand, when the objective should be to reinforce the opposition and impose unity in its ranks. But that requires effort and initiative, which have been absent from the administration’s approach to Syria. In contrast, the Russians saw how poorly Bashar Assad managed the Syrian uprising, but they never undercut the Syrian leader, and now he is stronger thanks to their military assistance and blocking tactics at the United Nations.

With friends like the Obama administration, who needs enemies? But Kerry is lucid about Syria’s importance, whereas the White House seems not to be. All those who have argued that the United States has no strategic interest in Syria have drunk from Obama’s Kool-Aid. For starters, Iran and Hezbollah have reached the contrary conclusion, and have acted accordingly, which imposes a second look at that foolish proposition. It is surely in the interest of the U.S. to push Iran out of Syria, and to make it difficult for Hezbollah to rearm in any new Middle Eastern conflict. A contained Hezbollah is one that will be more careful about embarking on new wars, which could stabilize Lebanon.

And since Iran is the main rival of the United States in the region, and since its nuclear program happens to be a major concern of the Obama administration, weakening Tehran’s footprint in the Levant could facilitate negotiations to help resolve the nuclear standoff.

Nothing is clear-cut in the Middle East, but the potential gains from an Iranian defeat in Syria should nevertheless have been obvious from the very beginning to Obama’s foreign policy sages. The White House claims to adhere to political realism, but other than displaying hard-nosed indifference to the fate of the Syrian population, the administration has failed to apply realist principles in defense of American national interests to the events in Syria.

Kerry’s admission that the U.S. came late to Syria will not endear him to Obama’s current advisers at the White House. The secretary of state could find himself without political allies at a time when he needs them the most to implement a coherent Syria policy. But the arrival of Susan Rice as the new national security advisor to replace Tom Donilon and the appointment of Samantha Power as UNambassador, both of whom have taken a touger line on Syria than other officials, could play in Kerry’s favor. Perhaps the secretary won’t be as lonely as he might have been.

Hezbollah’s Vietnam?

The only thing odd about Hezbollah’s intervention in the Syrian conflict is that it took over two years for the party and its backers in Tehran to make the decision. That’s because whatever one thinks of Hezbollah, the triumph of Syria’s rebels always posed an existential threat to the party and its agenda.

The victory in Qusayr was undeniably an important one for Hezbollah and the Syrian regime, knocking the rebels out of a swath of strategic territory in the province of Homs, linking Damascus to the coast. It now allows the Assad regime to turn its attentions to other areas from where the regime was forced to withdraw.

Attention is now focused on Aleppo, where Hezbollah combatants have been amassing recently. However, we can’t forget that the rebels have already been pushed out of neighborhoods around Damascus. And the recent deployment of Patriot missiles and F-16 aircrafts to Jordan suggests there are expectations of a regime offensive in the southern province of Deraa, considered the most likely location from where rebels could mount an attack against the Syrian capital.

Hezbollah’s deepening involvement in the Syrian war is a high-risk venture. Many see this as a mistake by the party, and it may well be. Qusayr will be small change compared to Aleppo, where the rebels are well entrenched and benefit from supply lines leading to Turkey. In the larger regional rivalry between Iran and Turkey, the Turkish army and intelligence services have an interest in helping make things very difficult for Hezbollah and the Syrian army in northern Syria, particularly after the car-bomb attack in Reyhanli in May.   

Many will be watching closely to see how the current crisis in Turkey affects Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ability to react to the Syrian situation, particularly if the epicenter of the fighting shifts to Aleppo. Erdogan has faced the displeasure among many in Turkey’s southern border areas with their government’s policy in Syria. At the same time, a defeat of the Syrian rebels in and around Aleppo is not something that Turkey can easily swallow so near to its borders, particularly if Hezbollah is instrumental in the fighting.

Hezbollah is willing to take heavy casualties in Syria, if this allows it to rescue the Assad regime. The real question is what time frame we are talking about, and how this affects the party’s vital interests elsewhere. For now, Hezbollah has entered Syria with no exit strategy. The way in which Hassan Nasrallah framed the intervention indicates that it is open-ended. This will prompt other parties to take actions and decisions they might otherwise have avoided for as long as the Syrian conflict was primarily one between Syrians.

Hezbollah is already a magnet for individuals and groups in Syria keen to take the air out of the region’s leading Shiite political-military organization - or simply to protect their towns and villages. As Qusayr showed, the presence of Hezbollah only induces its enemies to fight twice as hard against the party. As a proxy of Iran, Hezbollah will prompt governments to do the same, and they will see an opportunity to wear down the party and trap it in a grinding, no-win situation.

Playing in the favor of Hezbollah’s enemies is that the party has little latitude to alter its strategy in Syria. It must go all the way, predisposing it to sink ever-deeper into the Syrian quagmire, or until the point where the Syrian regime and pro-regime militias can capture and control territory on their own. That is not easy in a guerrilla war in which rebels have often out-matched the army.

Hezbollah, by contrast, benefits from coordination between the Syrian regime and Russia and Iran. Hezbollah’s entry into the conflict in Syria was, clearly, one facet of a broad counter-attack agreed by the Russians and Iranians, who have slowly but effectively reinforced and reorganized Syria’s army and intelligence services in the past two years. Their behavior has been disgraceful and pitiless, but from the start their objective was clear – to save Assad rule – while the Obama administration offered no strategy at all, and compensated for its incompetence in addressing the Syrian crisis with empty rhetoric.

Many have commented on the fact that Hezbollah’s reputation is in tatters. The so-called champion of the deprived is now at the vanguard of Bashar al-Assad’s repression of his own people; the embodiment of resistance has shifted forces away from the border with Israel to help in crushing an uprising against a brutal dictator.

That’s perhaps true, but Hezbollah is not particularly concerned with its reputation, except when it affects its political power. The party’s behavior is shaped by stark power calculations, and it has often read this into political situations with some accuracy. Hezbollah feels that, ultimately, if Assad stays in office and the uprising against him is overwhelmed, this will impose a new reality that will allow the party to resist all counter-reactions. In the end, Hezbollah knows, power tends to define reputation in the Middle East much more than allegiance to what is regarded as the morally acceptable position.

But that interpretation will apply only if Hezbollah avoids being drawn into a long and debilitating campaign in Syria. The party’s tolerance threshold is high, as is its ability to maintain Lebanese Shiite loyalty. But in Syria, as in Lebanon previously, the outsider is at a disadvantage. Hezbollah should learn the lessons from its own experience. The party cannot allow Syria to become its Vietnam.  

Why America's liberal hawks lost their voice over Syria

Last Sunday, US Senator John McCain offered a bleak assessment of the situation in Syria. He observed that the president, Bashar Al Assad, "now has the upper hand and it's tragic while we sit by and watch". Mr McCain's sense of outrage is shared by very few others in the United States, as those willing to advocate American intervention in Syria on moral grounds have been largely silent.

Things were different when President George W Bush prepared to invade Iraq. He had the support of a group of moral interventionists who endorsed the removal of Saddam Hussein, as they had earlier backed American involvement in the Bosnia war. Most of these individuals were public intellectuals, writers and academics who had little ideological affinity with the Bush administration. Many came from a left-wing background, earning them the label liberal hawks.

Yet the silence of most of these individuals on Syria has been so noticeable that the Washington Post's Jason Horowitz wrote about the topic last week. He speculated that the liberal hawks had been spooked "by the traumatic experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan and the clear reluctance of a Democratic president to get mired in the Middle East. Call them Syria's mourning doves".

Certainly, American fatigue after a decade of conflict in the broader Middle East is a major factor in shaping responses to Syria. However, moral interventionists generally base their actions on principle, and principles aren't supposed to change depending on political context. That is why there appears to be a more profound reason for the silence of the interventionists, and it probably has something to do with culture, even if few of them might readily admit to this.

Justification for American interference in Syria must be based on a narrative that appeals to the American public and politicians. The narrative in Bosnia stressed how Washington had to assist a freedom-loving people repressed by brutal Serbian forces, who had abused the human rights of defenceless Bosnian Muslims.

After the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in July 1995, President Bill Clinton escalated America's military role in the Balkans, allowing it, ultimately, to sponsor the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian conflict. This diplomatic success through armed force validated the attitudes of the moral interventionists.

Iraq was less convincing. The outcome of the war seemed too messy to fit into the neat narrative that the liberal hawks had defined before the war. Yes, Saddam Hussein was a leader of unspeakable viciousness, ruling over a long-suffering population. But what emerged from the American invasion was less a people welcoming their new-found freedom than a society falling back on the primary identities of sect or tribe as Iraq descended into chaos.

For the liberal hawks, there was little liberalism around which to rally. Armed Islamist organisations gained the upper hand. Al Qaeda found a new impetus. Iran benefited the most from the changed situation. And for a long time political violence and factionalism were the order of the day, so that many interventionists wondered whether they had not made matters worse by pushing for action in Iraq.

Given the memory of the September 11, 2001, attacks, this had a freezing effect on American moral interventionists. After all, liberty and democracy were regarded by them as necessary antidotes to the religious extremism that had led to that day. Instead, what materialised in Iraq, and is now materialising in Syria, was an Islamist upsurge accompanied by heightened sectarianism, precisely the opposite of what the interventionists had sought.

There is something else. As the one-time interventionists watch events in Syria, what they can see is that the uprising has tended to be led by a rural population, while Syria's more polished and cosmopolitan urban population has tended to be ambiguous. Indeed, the Assad regime has played on this urban-rural dichotomy to divide Syrians. Many in the secular west find it difficult to identify with rebels who shout "God is great" at every turn, and who come across as unsophisticated and frequently uncontrollable.

Syria's rebels often appear too different from Americans, unlike the Europeanised Muslim Bosnians and Kosovars, to invoke much sympathy in the United States. Their fight seems so plainly not to be America's fight that moral interventionists have little room to make a case on their behalf, especially in a country that has turned in upon itself and embraces the Obama administration's minimalism abroad.

That is not to say that there are no supporters of American intervention in Syria, or those who don't recognise the serious political implications of President Barack Obama's refusal to do much there. Vali Nasr, a former Obama administration official and the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, has been critical of the president's performance in Syria, publishing his thoughts in an excellent book, The Dispensable Nation. So too has another former Obama administration official, Anne-Marie Slaughter, who teaches at Princeton University.

Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, has been equally disparaging of Mr Obama's indifference towards the loss of life in Syria. "The moral dimension must be restored to our deliberations, the moral sting, or else Obama, for all his talk about conscience, will have presided over a terrible mutilation of American discourse: the severance of conscience from action," Mr Wieseltier wrote.

Yet individuals such as these are exceptions. Their willingness to challenge the trend of apathy in the United States is laudable, as is their worry that America will pay a price, both strategic and moral, for avoiding Syria. They also realise that an America that abandons Syria cannot be true to the values it purports to represent.

Hizbollah's foreign loyalties push Lebanon to the brink

The rocket attack against a predominantly Shia district in Beirut on Sunday remains a question mark. No one has claimed responsibility - even as many interpretations have been advanced to explain what happened. The attack heightened worries that Hizbollah's participation in the Syrian conflict will destabilise Lebanon.

The most conventional explanation for the attack on Shiyah was that it was retaliation by Syrian rebels, or their allies, for Hizbollah's role in helping the regime of Bashar Al Assad to recapture the strategic area of Qusayr, just across the Lebanese border. However, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) denied it was behind the attack.

Anti-regime groups that are not affiliated with the FSA, such as Jabhat Al Nusra, have said nothing, though such an operation is one they would have probably claimed as their own. Some speculated that a small group in Lebanon, perhaps even a Palestinian group with access to the Grad rockets that were fired, may have done this. Others offered conspiracy theories, including that Hizbollah had organised the attack to rally Shia support and discredit the rebels. All agreed the main victim was civil peace in Lebanon.

Adding to the confusion was that a rocket was fired at Israel on Sunday evening. Little goes on in southern Lebanon without Hizbollah knowing about it, which is why so many saw the incident as the party's way of reaffirming, despite Qusayr, that the main enemy remained Israel. It underlined - as did Hizbollah's secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah in a speech on Saturday - that Hizbollah's engagement in Syria sought to prevent Israel and the United States from exploiting the potential downfall of the Assad regime.

Was there a link between the morning attack in Shiyah and the evening attack in Israel? It's difficult to say. But Hizbollah's agenda and foreign loyalties are pushing Lebanon to the brink, with many worrying that violence in Syria may spread to Lebanon.

Indeed, fighting in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli between Sunni and Alawite neighbourhoods has gone on for over a week, and appears to be linked to the offensive in Qusayr. The skirmishing could have been provoked in an attempt to distract Lebanese Islamist groups from reinforcing the FSA fighters in Qusayr.

Mr Nasrallah's speech heightened tension in Lebanon as he linked what was happening in Syria to Hizbollah's well-being and survival. He also laid the groundwork for the party's continued involvement in Syria. "If Syria falls into the hands of the Takfiris and the United States, the resistance will be under siege and Israel will enter Lebanon. If Syria falls, the Palestinian cause will be lost," he said.

Many Lebanese politicians, including Hizbollah allies, are unhappy with the party's escalation in Syria. It has undermined the so-called Baabda Declaration between Lebanese parties to stay out of the war in Syria. Even Russia, which has sided with Mr Al Assad, is uneasy with Hizbollah's move, as it realises the implications for Lebanon.

Hizbollah feels that it can contain the consequences, and in this it may be right. The Sunni mainstream is not preparing for war. The danger comes from smaller, more radical groups, but even these need financing, and for now the likely financiers in the Gulf do not appear to want a sectarian conflict in Lebanon. Moreover, the Lebanese army has been able to control such groups, even if one can never be too reassured.

In the longer term, Hizbollah believes Mr Al Assad will prevail. The international community has been unable to dislodge him, and the Obama administration in particular has shown that its priority is to avoid being drawn into the Syrian conflict. When pressure built to reverse this stance after the Syrian regime apparently used chemical weapons, US president Barack Obama sent his secretary of state, John Kerry, to Moscow to find a way out.

Mr Kerry and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, agreed to hold the so-called Geneva II conference on Syria, fulfilling a long-standing Russian demand for the opposition to negotiate with Mr Al Assad. This allowed Mr Obama to avoid American intervention to uphold his "red lines" against chemical weapons use, and it gave him an excuse to delay arming Syria's rebels, which some in Washington have urged.

Mr Al Assad's regime and Hizbollah read American indecisiveness as an opportunity to attack in the area of Qusayr and in the suburbs of Damascus, regaining lost territory. In that way they gained leverage and favourably prepared the context for potential negotiations with the opposition. They also sensed that if the opposition refused to go to Geneva, this would alienate the western countries.

Nor have Syrian opposition groups convinced anybody of their effectiveness. They remain divided and their stance toward Geneva has yet to be announced. If they manage the conference and its outcomes poorly, this could cost them western backing, at a time when Washington worries far more about Al Qaeda filling the Syrian vacuum than about Mr Al Assad's staying in office.

If he can gain control over Qusayr, and eventually southern Syria, Mr Al Assad would hold land from Damascus to the coast and southward towards the border with Jordan. For Hizbollah, this would push the front line further away from Lebanon, possibly calming the mood in the country and allowing the party to secure its back at home.

The real dangers to Lebanon notwithstanding, Hizbollah is as clear about the risks in its actions as anybody else is. The party does not want a Sunni-Shia war in Lebanon as this could decisively weaken it. But Mr Al Assad is a red line for Iran and Hizbollah (along with Russia), and unlike the red line of Mr Obama, it is one they mean to impose.

Aoun's highway of broken dreams

So parliamentary elections will be postponed, allowing us to enjoy a further year and a half of Lebanon’s legislative confederacy of dunces. But what has provoked interest in the halls of parliament in recent days is Michel Aoun’s displeasure with extending parliament’s mandate, and how this might affect his relations with Hezbollah.

Most of the large parliamentary blocs have accepted an extension for different reasons. Hezbollah, the strongest proponent of an election delay, sees no reason for a decisive election before the situation in Syria becomes clearer. Saad Hariri, too, prefers to postpone elections, because under the several probable laws that would govern the electoral process today, he and March 14 would not win a majority. For Walid Jumblatt, any of the laws most likely to be on the table, such as a hybrid law, would undermine his lock on the Chouf and Aley. Better to wait until the broader political context changes. Meanwhile, Jumblatt still holds the balance of power in parliament.

The Lebanese Forces, after the fiasco over the Orthodox proposal, also prefer to hold off on elections in order to rebuild their relationship with Hariri and the Future Movement. Samir Geagea helped torpedo the 1960 law, which is what he sought, and knows no consensus will emerge over a new law anytime soon. Plus, postponement could thwart the aims of Geagea’s main Christian rival, Michel Aoun.

That’s why Aoun is the odd man out. After spending weeks pretending that he wanted the Orthodox proposal and opposed the 1960 law, Aoun must now pay the consequences. The reality is that he always favored the 1960 law, which allows him to benefit from friendly Shiite electorates in Jbeil, Baabda, and Jezzine. But Aoun needed to show he was sensitive to Christian displeasure with the 1960 law, and so he played the game of endorsing the now-dead Orthodox project.

Aoun finds himself in a bind. An extension means that there will be no elections, which would likely have won him a new Christian majority under the 1960 law. This would have put him in a stronger position to take over from President Michel Suleiman next year, when Suleiman’s mandate is scheduled to end. But Aoun now has to worry that an extension of parliament’s term will mean an extension of Suleiman’s term, denying Aoun the opportunity to become president.

Another question (if rather less grand) also preoccupies Aoun, namely who will succeed Jean Qahwaji as army commander. Aoun wants his son-in-law Shamel Roukoz to get the nod, and he opposes efforts by the parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, to extend Qahwaji’s term. Some have suggested that Hezbollah gave Aoun guarantees in this regard so as to secure his approval for extending parliament’s term.

But that will not make it any easier for Roukoz to be promoted. No one wants to hand Aoun such influence over the armed forces, and it is doubtful that Suleiman will welcome such an arrangement. Even Hezbollah, regardless of its alliance with Aoun, deep-down may prefer to bring in a commander of its own choosing rather than someone linked to a politician who, given his background, has the latitude to push the army in directions the party would prefer it not to go.

It is difficult to see what Aoun really gains from an extension of parliament’s mandate. The general is getting no younger and deferring electoral deadlines forces him to readjust his plans. Aoun has been a stalwart partner of Hezbollah for years, but other than help him gain large parliamentary blocs, the alliance has never permitted him to take advantage of such representation in order to fulfill his overarching ambition: becoming Lebanon’s president.

Aoun, no fool, knows this. Apparently his preferred way of dealing with his frustration is to impose himself as the Christian whom the political class cannot afford to circumvent. That is why the parliamentary elections were so important to him, and why their postponement is so damaging to his political fortunes.

Aoun has been uncomfortable with Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian conflict, though there are no signs that he will break with the party, despite suggestions to that effect from parliamentary sources cited by the Al-Hayat newspaper. What is interesting, however, is to see whether the general will seek to exploit growing Lebanese condemnation of Hezbollah’s actions in Syria to extract concessions from the party. And if so, what might these concessions be?

Ultimately, parliament’s extension saga may prove no more than another blip on Lebanon’s volatile political chart. But for Aoun it represents a fresh setback. Whenever he has felt the winds blowing his way, a political deal has intervened to foil his plans. In 2008 it was the Doha accord, which brought Suleiman to office instead of Aoun. Suleiman was set to go next year, giving Aoun a second chance, but now the political system has been frozen until 2015.

With a push from Hezbollah, Aoun may be compensated with a lucrative ministry for his son-in-law Gebran Bassil in a new government. But how pathetic that would be for a man who has long sought to become Lebanon’s head of state. Move aside as Aoun races ahead on the highway of broken dreams.

The slow suicide of Syria’s opposition

We are near the stage where the Syrian opposition, thanks to an effective campaign by the Syrian regime and its allies, but also a pervasive lack of unity or direction, may lose much of the support it needs to defeat President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Nor has the opposition grasped the deepening anxiety in neighboring countries who fear being destabilized by the conflict in Syria. A car-bomb explosion in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli recently and the rocket attack against the Shiyah neighborhood of Beirut’s southern suburbs have only reinforced this fear (even if no one has claimed responsibility for the suspicious Shiyah attack).

The killing of three Lebanese soldiers near Arsal Monday was no less worrisome. Whoever committed all these crimes must have known they would increase hostility to the cause of the Syrian rebels, whose determination to fight Assad until he leaves office guarantees tenser times ahead. If it was the Syrian opposition or its sympathizers, their reading of events was faulty; if it was the Syrian regime or its allies, then they cleverly manipulated rising popular misgivings.

Even the reaction of the Free Syrian Army to the Shiyah attack was a disaster. Initially, an FSA officer, Ammar al-Wawi, described the incident as a warning to Hezbollah. Soon thereafter, another FSA spokesman, Fahd al-Masri, rebuked Wawi and denied any FSA involvement. Wawi later changed his version, accusing Hezbollah of firing the rockets itself. And on Tuesday, the FSA threatened to retaliate against Hezbollah unless Lebanese President Michel Sleiman withdrew Hezbollah from Syria, as if Sleiman had any say in the matter.

The cacophony is even louder when it comes to preparing for the Geneva II conference on Syria scheduled for June. Last Thursday the opposition National Coalition began meetings in Istanbul to expand its membership and include Michel Kilo, a prominent opposition figure. Kilo proposed a list of 22 candidates, of whom only five were accepted. “The real, real, real problem is in the coalition,” a disgusted Kilo told the Al-Arabiya Arab satellite television station.

Meanwhile, the opposition has yet to decide whether it will be present in Geneva. A refusal to attend risks alienating the opposition’s supporters in the West. If it accepts, Geneva could prove to be its undoing, given the likely internal discord over what is agreed. Worse, there are no guarantees the National Coalition has much influence inside Syria, and Geneva may only highlight this if the groups on the ground reject political arrangements reached at the conference.

The Syrian opposition has failed to appreciate the shifting political context in which it is functioning, while the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian backers have. For instance there has been no planning for Geneva and the very real risks that the conference holds for the opposition, whether it participates or not.

Russia and the United States are going to Geneva with very different agendas, none of which favors Assad’s adversaries. For the Obama administration, Geneva provides an opportunity to begin a political process permitting America to evade a larger role in Syria. President Barack Obama had feared being pushed into such a role after reports came out that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons against the rebels, crossing Obama’s red lines for American intervention. The president sent Secretary of State John Kerry to Moscow and the accord over a conference bought Obama time to stay clear of Syria.

In other words, the Obama administration is going to Geneva largely to avoid Syria. Already, the administration has postponed discussion of arming the Syrian rebels, stating it does not want to undermine Geneva. If a political process is agreed there, the Americans will have a further excuse not to send weapons. The European states have also agreed not to supply weapons before August, to give Geneva a chance.

Russia, with a far clearer sense of what it wants in Syria, has another aim in Geneva: to consolidate Assad rule and put in motion a negotiating process that, at least temporarily, curbs the violence and divides the opposition. By helping Assad mount a successful offensive in the area around Qusair and reverse rebel gains near Damascus, the Russians have reinforced the Syrian president’s position, making it highly improbable that Geneva will seriously broach the matter of Assad’s departure from power. The Russians surely sense that Obama’s eagerness to be rid of the Syrian headache will push the U.S. to endorse a solution that avoids determining Assad’s fate.

The Syrian opposition cannot be blamed for the shameful American performance in Syria, but it can be blamed for failing to consider possible post-Geneva outcomes. Nor has it adequately addressed the very real doubts that have emerged over the participation in the Syrian uprising of the Nusra Front, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda. The fact is that there are profound doubts that the opposition can fill the vacuum in Syria if Assad goes, which can only favor jihadist groups.

No one in the West, particularly the U.S., much cares that it was Western indecision over Syria that created an opening for the militant Islamists. As they see the opposition in disarray, one thing they do not want is a new Afghanistan in the Levant, which will destabilize Syria’s neighbors. And the neighbors are beginning to agree. Recall that associating the opposition with Al-Qaeda has long been the line of the Assad regime, which then made it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Syria’s opposition must regroup quickly, or else all will be lost. The tens of thousands of Syrians who have died at the hands of a barbaric leadership deserve better. But the chances are they will not get better.

An empty threat from John Kerry?

In Jordan on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned that if the Syrian regime did not cooperate in forming a transitional government after the Geneva conference in June, the United States would consider giving military aid to the Syrian opposition.

“In the event that we can’t find that way forward, in the event that the Assad regime is unwilling to negotiate Geneva in good faith, we will also talk about our continued support, growing support for [the] opposition in order to permit them to continue to fight for the freedom of their country,” Kerry said.

The remarks probably impressed the Syrian opposition very little. They’ve heard it all before and know that their leverage in Geneva will be determined by the balance of power on the ground at the time of the conference. Weapons flows to the rebels remain limited, in part because the Obama administration does not want to compromise Geneva’s success. Whatever its difficulties in Qusayr, Bashar al-Assad’s regime has made military gains in recent weeks with the help of Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia, who all view Geneva as an opportunity to transform those gains into political capital favoring Assad.

Diplomacy is frequently about using military advances to bolster a political agenda. President Barack Obama does not want to involve the United States in Syria’s war. That’s understandable, especially as American forces would in no way help resolve the Syrian crisis. However, he has also refused to use military means, including arming the rebels to achieve his diplomatic aims, which is incomprehensible.

Whereas the Americans appear to view Geneva as a confidence-building forum demanding compromise, the Russians and Iranians regard it as a means of consolidating Assad’s position - as uncompromising an attitude as one can imagine. That is one reason why the battle over Qusayr is so important to the Syrian president, and why we have seen an escalation in Tripoli. The combat between Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tebbaneh is a distraction to occupy Lebanese Salafists who might otherwise have gone to Qusayr and delayed a regime victory there.

There has been much talk that Geneva will fail, that Qusayr makes a conference improbable, and so on. In fact, Geneva is likely to become a milestone in the Syria conflict, because it will define the political climate that comes afterward. Unlike the Friends of Syria meetings that have become echo chambers, Geneva will bring Syrian and international antagonists together for the first time.

Moreover, the United States wants Geneva. This means that Russia can extract concessions from an Obama administration keen to find a mechanism allowing it to avoid a major commitment in Syria.

In that context, Kerry’s remarks pose a question: Is Obama really willing to ratchet up military aid to the Syrian rebels if Geneva goes nowhere? In fact, he may consider any political process that emerges from the conference as another excuse to put off arming the rebels. Much like the president’s “red line” on the use of chemical weapons in Syria, Kerry’s warning may be as elusive as it is indeterminate.

And here we can ask another question. Does Kerry have the pull in the White House necessary to impose a Syria policy with which the president and his closest advisors are uncomfortable? Recall that he was not Obama’s first choice for the secretary of state post, suggesting that his ability to sway the president on Syria is limited.

All of this is not good news for the Syrian opposition, which itself has not created a credible structure to lead the fight against Bashar al-Assad. This shortcoming cannot be blamed on the United States, even if the administration could have done far more to impose unity in the ranks rather than allowing countries such as Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and others to back contending opposition factions.

Today, it is unclear what the Obama administration wants from Geneva. Officially, it seeks a transitional government that would eventually ease Assad out of office. But unless Russia is on board (and it isn’t) that won’t happen. This leaves a second American priority, namely to avoid being drawn into the Syrian quagmire.

This second priority cripples the administration’s ability to push for the first. In order for Geneva not to founder, Obama would probably accept a political arrangement that buys him time, regardless of whether this harms the Syrian opposition. The U.S. is going to Geneva to keep away from Syria, while Russia is going to defend an ally.

Assad has already made it clear that he has no intention of stepping down, and Geneva will almost certainly not address the issue head-on because of Syrian and Russian opposition. At best the conference may create a political process that all sides can interpret as they wish: Washington will be able to say that the ultimate outcome is Assad’s departure, while Russia and Assad will be able to say that it is not. The subsequent phase will be shaped by that ambiguity as Assad and his enemies pursue efforts to press for the endgame they desire.

George Kennan once lamented the American tendency to make statements of diplomatic policy that they had neither the means nor the intention of implementing. The Obama administration does not have the will to get rid of Bashar al-Assad, notwithstanding Kerry’s remarks to the contrary. Geneva will only confirm this reluctance, because Washington won’t insist on unseating Assad if this undermines a political process that is agreed in Geneva. And when the magic word “process” is deployed in Washington, all else grinds to a halt.