The major developments on the Syrian battlefield in recent months have brought
a corresponding shift in the Obama administration’s Syrian policy.
Since the Russian military intervention in Syria upended the military balance
created by the victories of the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front and its allies
last year, the Obama administration has quietly retreated from its former position
that “Assad must go”.
These political and military changes have obvious implications for the UN-sponsored
Geneva peace negotiations. The Assad regime and its supporters are now well
positioned to exploit the talks politically, while the armed opposition is likely
to boycott them for the foreseeable future.
Supporters of the armed opposition are already expressing anger over what they
regard as an Obama administration “betrayal”
of the fight against Assad. But the Obama policy shift on Syria must be understood,
like most of the administration’s Middle East policy decisions, as a response
to external events that is mediated by domestic political considerations.
The initial Obama administration’s public stance on the Russian air campaign
in Syria last October and early November suggested that the United States was
merely waiting for Russia’s intervention to fail.
For weeks the political response to the Russian intervention revolved around
the theme that the Russians were seeking to bolster their client regime in Syria
and not to defeat ISIS, but that it would fail. The administration appeared
bent on insisting that Russia give into the demand of the US and its allies
for the departure of President Bashar al-Assad from power.