Press conferences by John Kerry
and Boris Johnson following Western foreign ministers' meeting in London
confirms military options to save Jihadi fighters have been abandoned and that
the Western powers have accepted that the Syrian government with Russian
support will recapture eastern Aleppo.
As might be expected, the West’s
public acceptance of defeat in Aleppo came quietly, but it has now come.
The events of the last few week can be summed up quickly.
Following the US climbdown in the first week of October after the
Russian warning of Russia’s readiness to shoot down US aircraft carrying out
bombing strikes against Syrian bases, a final attempt was made to scare and
embarrass the Russians into getting the Syrians to call the Aleppo offensive
off.
This centred on a failed and actually farcical attempt to isolate
and embarrass the Russians at the UN Security Council (discussed in detail here),
combined with empty threats to bring war crimes prosecutions against the
Russians, and more empty threats of further sanctions against individual Russian officials
(additional sectoral sanctions are out of the question).
A meeting of the US National Security Council took place on
Friday, with some US officials telling
the media anonymously that military options would again be discussed and presented to Obama for his consideration.
This was a completely empty claim since Obama had publicly rejected these
same military options the previous week. The same US officials were
therefore obliged to admit that it was “extremely unlikely” that Obama would
approve these options, and he would probably “not make a decision”.
Meanwhile Boris Johnson, Britain’s hapless Foreign Secretary,
appeared to float an idea for a “no
bombing zone”, though typically he never did so
clearly or openly and most of the details had to be provided in off the record
conversations to the British media.
The idea behind this “no bombing zone” was that the US and the
Western powers would unilaterally announce a prohibition on bombing by the
Syrians and the Russians in any part of Syria. In the event that the Syrians
or the Russians disregarded this announcement and continued bombing, the US and
the Western powers would retaliate by launching strikes against Syrian bases
and military facilities where no Russians were believed to be present.
It is not clear who was the
originator of this plan but its half-baked nature suggests it was probably
Boris Johnson himself.
The “no bombing zone” is simply a “no fly zone” without the aerial
bombardment. The US has never imposed a “no
fly zone” without an aerial bombardment. We have a detailed discussion of
what a “no fly zone” involves and why an aerial bombardment is an integral part
of it from no less a person than
Hillary Clinton herself.
The US military would never agree to enforce a “no fly zone” (or a
“no bombing zone”) without an aerial bombardment since by failing (in US
parlance) to “degrade” the Syrian air defences through an aerial bombardment
the US would be placing its aircraft and pilots enforcing the “no fly zone” (or
“no bombing zone”) at risk.
In a situation where the air defences in question are not merely
Syrian but Russian – and therefore far more capable of shooting down US
aircraft – the whole idea of enforcing a “no bombing zone” without an aerial
bombardment to “degrade” these defences is inconceivable. Only a complete civilian with
no understanding of how the US military conducts operations would conceive of
it, which is why its author is very likely to be Boris Johnson himself.
The “no bombing zone” would in fact depend for its enforcement on
launching long range cruise missile strikes on Syrian bases from US warships,
which for geographical and political reasons would have to be based in the
eastern Mediterranean.
Some of the Russian air defence systems in Syria are probably
capable of shooting down these cruise missiles. The S-300MV Antey-2500 recently
deployed to Syria was designed for this very purpose.
The Russians say it is in Syria to protect Russia’s naval facility
in Tartus. That suggests its units have
been stationed along the Syrian coast, in other words precisely in the area
where they would most effectively intercept US cruise missiles launched from US
warships from the eastern Mediterranean.
That already puts the viability of enforcing the “no bombing zone”
with cruise missiles from US warships in the eastern Mediterranean in question.
The key concern of the US would however be that the Russians have
also warned that in case of US missile strikes on Syria killing Russian
personnel they would retaliate with missile strikes of their own against facilities
in Syria they know to be staffed by US personnel.
There are persistent rumours the Russians have already done just
that. This was supposedly done in
retaliation for the US air strike on the Syrian military near Deir Ezzor. That is rumoured to have killed
three Russian advisers stationed with the Syrian troops there. In retaliation the Russians are
supposed to have launched a cruise missile strike on a Jihadi headquarters
staffed by Western military personnel – including some from the US – all or some
of whom were killed.
Even if this strike never
happened – and it has never been confirmed that it did – someone is spreading
rumours about it. Quite conceivably it is the
Russians as their way of making clear that it is something they are prepared to
do.
It is inconceivable that the US political and military leadership
would put the lives of its personnel in Syria at risk in this way, especially
in a situation which could easily escalate into a full-blown military
confrontation with the Russians.
One way or the other the “no bombing zone” faces the same
insuperable problems that a fully fledged “no fly zone” does. An editorial in The London Times has now admitted as much.
Quite simply, what makes it
impractical is that it risks a head on confrontation with the Russian military
in Syria. That is something that neither
the West’s political nor its military leadership is prepared to risk.
All this became entirely obvious at a meeting of Western foreign
ministers in London on Sunday convened by Boris Johnson directly following
Kerry’s meeting with Lavrov on Saturday in Lausanne.
It is clear that Kerry found Lavrov in Lausanne completely
immoveable, with Lavrov sticking to the well-known Russian position that there
can be no more unilateral ceasefires by the Syrian army, and that a
precondition for a ceasefire is the separation of Syrian opposition fighters
from Jabhat Al-Nusra – as the US has repeatedly promised and as has repeatedly
failed to happen.
In the face of this, and with
military options ruled out, the Western foreign ministers in London were left
with nothing other than to accept the inevitable, which is that the Syrian
government is going to recapture eastern Aleppo.
This became clear from the subsequent news conference,
which significantly only Kerry and Johnson attended.
Both Kerry and Johnson admitted that there is no support in Europe
for military action in Syria and that this option has been ruled out. Here is what Kerry had to say
about it
“I
haven’t seen a big appetite in Europe of people to go to war. I don’t see the
parliaments of European countries ready to declare war. I don’t see a lot of
countries deciding that that’s the better solution here.
So we are pursuing diplomacy
because those are the tools that we have, and we’re trying to find a way
forward under those circumstances. Easy to say, where’s the action? But what is
the action? I have a lot of people who have a lot of trouble defining that when
you really get down to trying to do it.”
And here is what Boris Johnson
had to say about it
And to the gentleman there,
look, no option is, in principle, off the table. But being no doubt that these
so-called military options are extremely difficult and there is, to put it
mildly, a lack of political appetite in most European capitals and certainly in
the West for that kind of solution at present. So we’ve got to work with the
tools we have. The tools we have are diplomatic….”
As to what has forced the West to take the “military option” in
Syria off the table, Kerry spelled it out. It is what The Duran has
reported (see here and here),
and what the Western media has ignored
when a great power is involved
in a fight like this, as Russia has chosen to be by going there and then
putting its missiles in place in order to threaten people against military
action, it raises the stakes of confrontation….”
With no military option available, and with all forms of pressure
on the Russians having failed, there is nothing more the West can do.
That this is so was most clearly admitted by Boris Johnson. All he could come up with to
save the Jihadi fighters in Aleppo was plead with the Russians for mercy
And it is up to them (NB: the
Russians – AM) to seize this moment to recognise the opportunity and, in my
view, to show greatness and to show leadership…..it’s really up to them now to
listen and to show mercy –
show mercy to
those people in that city, get a ceasefire going, get the negotiations going in
Geneva, and let’s bring this slaughter to an end.”
(bold italics added)
When a Western foreign minister
– even one as preposterous as Boris
Johnson – is reduced to pleading with the Russians for mercy, then it is
obvious that the game is over and the ‘Great Battle of Aleppo’ has been lost.
Kerry in fact all but admitted as much. His comments make it clear the
US now accepts the Syrian government is going to recapture eastern Aleppo, and
that the Jihadi fighters there are doomed. All he could say was that it
would not be the end of the war.
Now, some people ask what
happens to Aleppo if it were to fall. Well, the Russians should understand, and
Assad needs to understand, that that does not end the war. This war cannot end
without a political solution. So even if Aleppo were to fall, even if they have
utterly destroyed it, which they are doing, that will not change the
fundamental equation in this war because other countries will continue to
support opposition, and they will continue to create more terrorists, and Syria
will be the victim in the end as well as the region.”
That continuing the war after the Syrian government recaptures
eastern Aleppo is now the US objective was previously confirmed by the same US
officials (quite possibly Kerry himself) who spoke anonymously to the media
last week. Here is how Reuters reports it
in a despatch dated Friday 14th October 2016
The ultimate aim of any new
action could be to bolster the battered moderate rebels so they can weather
what is now widely seen as the inevitable fall of rebel-held eastern Aleppo to
the forces of Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.”
The US and its allies do have the means to prolong the war in
Syria at least for a time even after the Syrian government regains control of
eastern Aleppo. As Mark Sleboda and I have
previously said, it is precisely in order to create a safe zone for
the Jihadis in north east Syria – and therefore to prolong the war – that the Turkish military with US
support invaded north east Syria in August.
Whatever Jihadi entity is eventually created in the Turkish
controlled safe zone in north east Syria, it cannot however convincingly claim
to be the government of Syria. That will always be the
government in control of Syria’s great cities, first and foremost Aleppo and
Damascus, and the densely populated region of western Syria in which they are
located and where the great majority of Syria’s people live.
It is now clear that for the foreseeable future the government of
Syria will be the government of President Bashar Al-Assad, which is and always
has been the legitimate UN recognised government of Syria.
With the recapture of eastern Aleppo the future of this government
will have been secured. That means that for the
foreseeable future the regime change project in Syria is dead.
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