{"id":200542,"date":"2015-11-16T02:20:25","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T02:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=200542"},"modified":"2015-11-16T02:46:15","modified_gmt":"2015-11-16T02:46:15","slug":"u-s-yields-to-russias-insistence-upon-democracy-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/u-s-yields-to-russias-insistence-upon-democracy-in-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Yields to Russia’s Insistence Upon Democracy in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

The Syrian peace talks in Vienna, over the weekend, produced an agreement between all parties, and it constitutes a major defeat for the United States, because the result is entirely in accord with the longstanding Russian position, which the U.S. government has consistently opposed, that only the Syrian people should have the right to determine who will, and who won\u2019t, be able to run in Syrian elections.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The AP headlined on Sunday, November 15th,\u00a0\u201cSyrian Legislator Praises Aspects of Plan to End War,\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and quoted Syrian parliamentarian Omar Ossi, head of the parliament\u2019s reconciliation committee, as telling the AP that \u201cthe plan has many points that \u2018run in harmony\u2019 with Assad\u2019s position.\u201d What Ossi objected to was that some nations are \u201cbetting on the issue of toppling the Syrian regime by military force,\u201d instead of by allowing democracy to determine the result.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Saturday, November 14th, the crucial second round of the Vienna talks on resolving the crisis in Syria ended with a joint statement in which all 17 of the participating countries agreed that\u00a0in six months, Syria must have a transitional government, and that 12 months after that, there will be a Presidential election to determine the country\u2019s leader<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The key sticking-point until this weekend had been whether Syria\u2019s current President, Bashar al-Assad (whom even Western polls show to be overwhelmingly supported by Syria\u2019s population<\/span><\/a>) would be allowed to be a candidate in this election. The U.S. said no, Russia said yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Up to that time,\u00a0the U.S. had consistently insisted that Assad must be removed from office.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0However, after the Paris terrorist bombings on Friday the 13th, Secretary of State Kerry indicated that the United States might cease to insist on Assad\u2019s removal. Russia, and its allies, Iran and Syria, had already made clear, and they continued to hold, that there be simply no agreement if the U.S. and its allies (including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE \u2013 all very active participants in that war to overthrow Assad) continued insisting on having a right to dictate who may and who may not run in this election. Russia and its allies insisted that only the Syrian public has a right to determine Syria’s leader \u2013 that no foreign powers do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Though the United States position had continued to be supported by America\u2019s allies, the U.S. Secretary of State himself finally decided to accept the position of Russia and its allies, Iran, and Syria, so that the more pressing issue of terrorism may be addressed, in the wake of the Paris bombings.<\/span><\/p>\n

In recent weeks, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has repeatedly condemned the U.S. position<\/span><\/a> as \u201cdisrespect on international law,\u201d and saying that it \u201cis not acceptable. It\u2019s not fair.\u201d That\u2019s how blatant America\u2019s opposition to democracy in Syria had been (until now): blatant enough to cause even a person in his position to condemn it in public.<\/span><\/p>\n

This Vienna agreement was signed by representatives of all of the 17\u00a0countries, the UN, the EU and the Arab\u00a0League.\u00a0Its text has not yet been published. The terms of the agreement are currently known only by statements about it from participants at the talks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Specifically, the agreement is said to specify that, by 14 December 2015, diplomats will reconvene to discuss any residual issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 1 January 2016, the UN will then convene formal negotiations between the Syrian government and its political opponents who are not involved in terrorist activities. Obviously, defining who those parties are will be highly contentious between the U.S. and its allies, and Russia and its allies.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 14 May 2016, free elections will be held in Syria, administered by the UN.<\/span><\/p>\n

The agreement specifies that the war against jihadist groups, all of which have been trying to bring down the Syrian government, will continue. This provision of the agreement recognizes the unacceptable role that these groups, such as Al Nusra (Al Qaeda in Syria) and ISIS, play in bombings not only in France but throughout Europe and the Middle East. The agreement won\u2019t say whether those groups may participate in the elections, but it will specify that the war against those groups\u00a0can continue, even while the peace process in Syria is being implemented<\/span><\/a>. The \u201cceasefire\u201d won\u2019t apply to efforts to wipe out those jihadist groups, which are illegal in Syria.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse The Syrian peace talks in Vienna, over the weekend, produced an agreement between all parties, and it constitutes a major defeat for the United States, because the result is entirely in accord with the longstanding Russian position, which the U.S. government has consistently opposed, that only the Syrian people should have the right […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":172816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[115,30,1036,1035,535,850,522,543,524,754,49,76,40,1024],"class_list":{"0":"post-200542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-big-brother","10":"tag-breaking-news","11":"tag-daily-news","12":"tag-global-news","13":"tag-kerry","14":"tag-obama","15":"tag-putin","16":"tag-russia","17":"tag-syria","18":"tag-usa-news","19":"tag-warfare","20":"tag-white-house","21":"tag-ww3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}