Follow up to: Syria MUST Take Back Daraa
Selected excerpts from War on the Rocksmy limited commentary in red
" The United States faces a critical decision in southwestern Syria.
A Syrian military offensive on the southwest now seems imminent. Clashes broke out on the area’s eastern edge on Tuesday, and the Syrian military bombed rebel-held towns from the air, an unambiguous breach of the de-escalation agreement. Time is short. Still, there may still be a chance for an alternative. In our latest report at the International Crisis Group, Keeping the Calm in Southern Syria, we urge all sides – the de-escalation agreement’s three sponsors as well as, indirectly, Israel and the Syrian government – to broker a deal to prevent a bloody fight for the southwest.
For the Trump administration, that means it has to choose:
- 1- Will it deal with the southwest on the area’s own terms? (ignoring the civilian rhetoric/ the US does not care at all about civilians) and promoting the interests of Jordan and Israel, two close allies?
- 2- Or will it fail to engage seriously in negotiations and allow events to take a more brutal course, one that crushes the southwestern opposition, rends the area’s remaining social fabric, and squanders whatever terms and guarantees Washington and its allies might have been able to negotiate in advance?
The sponsors of the de-escalation agreement discussed expanding the size of the buffer area, but higher-level trilateral negotiations faltered late last year. The Amman-based ceasefire monitoring center has continued to meet, but any expansion of the buffer zone and other substantive developments to the de-escalation agreement are the province of trilateral political talks among the United States, Russia, and Jordan. Those talks last convened in November 2017 – and since then, the agreement has been on autopilot.
The southwest is critically important to an ongoing struggle between Israel and Iran over the nature and duration of Iran’s presence in Syria, a regional conflict that has run parallel to the country’s civil war. The intervention of Iran and Hizballah in defense of their Syrian ally has given them a political prominence and military role in Syria with no precedent prior to the 2011 uprising. Israel has become convinced that Iran’s expanded presence risks upsetting the two countries’ tenuous deterrent balance across the region and has declared it will not allow Iran to establish a lasting strategic military presence in Syria. It has outlined a set of “red lines” that, if crossed, would prompt Israeli military action. These red lines include Iranian-backed militias taking up offensive positions in the southwest, opposite the occupied Golan. Israel has attempted to establish its red lines with an escalating series of strikes against what it alleges are Iranian or Iranian-linked targets in Syria. These strikes have recently come dangerously close to escalating into open interstate war.
The ceasefire and buffer zone established by the de-escalation agreement were meant to serve both Jordanian and Israeli security needs.In other words the de-escalation agreement was intended, on the part of the US/UK to create an alternative government to the elected government in Damascus- with an eye to annexing still more Syrian territory.
America’s Syria Policy and an Endangered De-Escalation
1- The de-escalation agreement was meant to be not just a ceasefire, but also the basis for a more complete, evolving deal in the rebel-held southwest. Yet the Trump administration’s shifting policy has undermined the de-escalation deal, and, since last fall, prevented negotiated progress to advance the agreement.
2- The de-escalation agreement was also meant to be underwritten by an influx of stabilization assistance to support governance and services and restore some normality to the rebel-held southwest, led by the United States and the United Kingdom."
"Militarily speaking, the rebel-held southwest seems unlikely to be a difficult target to capture for the Syrian army, particularly if Russia provides air support for an offensive. Rebel territory can be cut at a few key junctures and then defeated in pieces. The government has also been engaging in talks with rebel-held towns across the southwest to make sure they don’t act when the Syrian military marches south.
The main deterrent to a Syrian military offensive had been the danger that the involvement of Iranian-backed militias would set off Israeli intervention.
That meant an offensive posed a real danger to Damascus and might have discouraged crucial involvement by Russia, which has invested in its relationships with both Israel and Jordan. Yet Damascus can muster newly mobile Syrian forces, after its victories elsewhere, and energetic Russian diplomacy may have neutralized the risk of Israeli action"
If Russian diplomacy has neutralized the Israeli actions? We shall see.
"According to news reports and Israeli officials who spoke to my organization, Israel and Russia have arrived at a preliminary understanding on the return of the Syrian state to the southwest, conditional on the exclusion of Iranian-backed elements from that area and Israel’s continued freedom to strike inside Syria"I wonder who has provided this information to Mr Heller's organization? It's unverifiable. We can only know afterwards if this accurate. I would hope Russia wouldn't make that type of a deal with Israel.
"The U.S. State Department has warned Damascus against violating the de-escalation agreement and repeatedly promised “firm and appropriate measures.” But there is no indication of what that entails, or even if that language is backed by an actual threat. The U.S. government previously told rebels that if the Syrian military attacked, it would “do everything in [its] ability” to preserve the ceasefire – a reassurance that rebels told the International Crisis Group they found ambiguous and underwhelming"
Flashback: U.S. to take 'firm, appropriate measures' against so called Syria violations- Funding Terrorist White Helmets, Again.
"One Chance for a Negotiated Alternative
The United States has a compelling interest in negotiating a settlement that avoids open war and mitigates the harm to the southwest’s residents and Syria’s neighbors.
As an interim step, the de-escalation agreement’s sponsors should adopt a Jordanian proposal to shift the agreement’s focus to a “stabilization zone.” Stabilization would mean new steps toward the institutional and economic integration of the rebel southwest into its Syrian government-held surroundings – including trade both cross-line and cross-border through a Nasib crossing returned to Syrian state control – and draw in a broader set of international stakeholders, including Russia. The result would hopefully reassure the Syrian government and Russia that negotiated progress is possible and forestall a military attack.
Many southern rebels will resist any deal. But a negotiated resolution is better than a crushing military defeat at the hands of the Syrian military and the Russian air force, followed by unforgiving, prejudicial surrender deals that rip out large sections of the southwest’s clan-based society and expel southerners to Syria’s rebel-held north. Southern Syrians are better served by a deal that spares pointless bloodshed and preserves their tightly knit social fabric by keeping southern communities intact, preventing social breakdown that encourages crime, radicalism, and recruitment by Iranian-linked elements. Syria’s neighbors are better served, too. So is America.
Syria’s southwest matters. If the United States is going to protect its interests and the interests of its closest regional allies in this corner of Syria’s war, it needs to invest in talks and produce a solution specifically for the southwest – for the southwest’s sake and for America’s."Can it get any more obvious that the whole concern here is for Israel?
4 hours ago - 
