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Generational Dynamics World View
*** 25-Jan-17 World View -- Russia, Iran, Turkey sign farcical Syria peace agreement

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • Russia, Iran, Turkey sign farcical Syria peace agreement
  • Syria peace conference sees a return to 'proximity talks'
  • The aftermath of the destruction of Aleppo

****
**** Russia, Iran, Turkey sign farcical Syria peace agreement
****


[Image: g170124b.jpg]
Politicians shake hands and congratulate each other at Tuesday's conclusion of the Syria peace negotiations (AP)

What's wrong with this picture: There's a civil war in Syria between
the Shia/Alawites versus the Sunnis. On Tuesday, Russia, Iran and
Turkey signed a peace agreement.

The thing that's wrong with this picture is that nobody from Syria
signed the agreement. It was an agreement among outsiders, and did
not include any parties who are nominally the opponents in Syria's
civil war.

The peace talks were held in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan.
Syrian civil war peace talks in the past were held in Geneva, so
having these talks in Astana gives that "this time it's different"
feeling to the meeting.

Another reason it's different is that the United States was not
invited to the peace talks, largely because Iran opposed having the US
present. However, the US was permitted to have an observer, and sent
George Krol, the U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan. The US issued a
statement saying that it welcomed any "actions that sustainably
de-escalate violence and reduce suffering in Syria."

However the main reason, according to analysts, that this time it's
different is that Russia is making it clear that it's willing to
enforce a peace in Syria, so that it will get the credit for bringing
about peace.

In fact, Russia is so eager to enforce a peace that on Tuesday, for
apparently the first time ever, Russia publicly bashed Syria's
president Bashar al-Assad for breaching the ceasefire and lying about
it.

This has to do with a region called Wadi Barada in the suburbs of
Damascus, that's under the control of anti-Assad rebels. Al-Assad's
forced, aided by Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah forces, have been
breaching the ceasefire, attacking the anti-Assad rebels around Wadi
Barada. Al-Assad claimed that it was al-Qaeda forces that were
attacking the rebels, but the Russians called him out, essentially
calling him a liar.

Readers may recall that in 2015, al-Assad's army was close to complete
collapse, and was only saved by massive Russian intervention. This
was confirmed on Tuesday by Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov,
who said that al-Assad and Damascus itself were only three weeks away
from falling, which was prevented only because the Russian air force
came and saved him.

So the Russians have hallucinatory belief that they're going to
enforce a ceasefire across Syria, including al-Assad's army, the
so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), the
al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front, recently renamed
Jabhat Fateh al-Sham or JFS), and any of the numerous anti-Assad rebel
groups in Syria. Russia is going to enforce a ceasefire among all
those groups, Syria will return to "normal," and Russia will get all
the credit for bringing peace to the land. It's hard not to laugh.
Washington Post and Guardian (London)

****
**** Syria peace conference sees a return to 'proximity talks'
****


It's almost hard to believe, but we're seeing "proximity talks" again.

In Astana, the al-Assad representatives were supposed to meet face to
face with the anti-Assad rebel representatives. On Monday, they all
sat around a nice oval table, so they could negotiate. So then the
lead rebel negotiator Mohammed Alloush, called the Syrian government a
"bloody, oppressive regime" that forced Syrians to choose between "the
terrorism of Bashar and the terrorism of ISIS," implying that al-Assad
is worse terrorist than ISIS. Syria's lead negotiator, Bashar
Jaafari, responded by calling Alloush the head of the "armed terrorist
groups’ delegation." So that was the end of the face to face talks
between the al-Assad and rebel representatives. After that, they were
put into separate rooms, and the farcical "proximity talks" started.

I described how this works in the context of the January 2014 peace
negotiations. Instead of talking to each other, a mediator carries
messages back and forth between the two sides, in the hopes of
reaching an agreement that way.

So you have people saying that the Astana talks are a "breaktrhough"
because the two sides are finally talking to each other, but in fact
they aren't talking to each other. AP and The Diplomat and ARA News (Syria)

Related Articles

****
**** The aftermath of the destruction of Aleppo
****


Let's review. Last year, al-Assad's military, supported by
overwhelming destructive force provided by Russia and Iran, was going
to destroy the city of Aleppo. That was going to end the war because
it would demoralize the opposition groups and jihadists so they would
lose interesting in fighting, and would go home.

At the time, Bashar al-Assad called it "history in the making":

> [indent]<QUOTE>"[The liberation of Aleppo was] history in the making
> and worthy of more than the word congratulations.
>
> History is being written in these moments. Every Syrian citizen is
> taking part in the writing. It started not today, but years ago
> when the crisis and the war on Syria began.
>
> I think that after the liberation of Aleppo we’ll talk about the
> situation as ... before the liberation of Aleppo and after the
> liberation of Aleppo."<END QUOTE>
[/indent]

Well, nobody is talking about the destruction of Aleppo as "history in
the making" any more. It was pure fantasy by al-Assad. Al-Assad
destroyed Aleppo, but nobody seems to have gone home. There's a
ceasefire in effect, but how long before it falls apart?

I've been writing about this war for years. Syria is in a
generational Awakening era, and this war should have fizzled within a
year. But Bashar al-Assad's goal is extermination of Syria's Sunnis,
as I've been describing for years.

It's worth remembering how we got here. The civil war in Syria was
caused by al-Assad when he unleashed his army and air force against
peaceful protesters in 2011. Up to that point, Turkey and Saudi
Arabia were friendly with al-Assad. Things really turned around in
August 2011, when al-Assad launched a massive military assault on a
large, peaceful Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia, filled with tens
of thousands of women and children Palestinians.

Al-Assad's unprovoked attack on this refugee camp, and the slaughter
of thousands of Palestinian women and children, drew young jihadists
from around the world to Syria to fight al-Assad, resulting in the
formation of the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or
Daesh). Sunnis in Syria itself turned against al-Assad, forming
either "moderate" rebel militias or joining the jihadist Al-Nusra
Front. Al-Assad is responsible for displacing millions of Syrians,
including over a million that have flowed into Europe as refugees.

So let's suppose that the Astana peace negotiations "succeed" in some
sense, and the ceasefire continues for a while. What's going to
happen when Syrians begin peacefully protesting again? Is al-Assad
going to ignore it this time? How long will Russia's military be
willing to continue spending blood and money to enforce the ceasefire?

A ceasefire cannot work unless both sides want it to work. In this
case, neither side wants it to work. What has always been clear to me
is that al-Assad started this war and is the driving force behind
continuing the war. As long as al-Assad is in power, the war will
continue. ARA News (Syria) and LA Times

Related Articles


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Bashar al-Assad,
Astana, Kazakhstan, George Krol, Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Nusra Front,
Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, JFS, Front for the Conquest of Syria,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Lebanon, Hezbollah, Sergei Lavrov, Mohammed Alloush, Bashar Jaafari,
proximity talks, Aleppo

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25-Jan-17 World View -- Russia, Iran, Turkey sign farcical Syria peace agreement - by John J. Xenakis - 01-24-2017, 11:13 PM
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