US Declares De Facto No-Fly Zone in NE Syria

Without debate and with little fanfare, the US has announced a major escalation in the Syrian conflict. In a move pregnant with disaster, the Pentagon has declared an "exclusion zone" over a part of northeastern Syria around the town of Hasaka.

This is an extension of a dangerous development over the weekend in which the US scrambled fighter jets to intercept Syrian planes that were attempting to bomb targets in Hasaka. That episode did not see any shots fired between the planes. However, with the new announcement, it is possible that future encounters could result in dogfights between US and Syrian warplanes. And since Syria is backed by both Iran and Russia, this would be a major progression of the indirect proxy war going on currently.

All of which might have a reasonable person wondering why any of this is occurring? Why did the US escalate the conflict, and why now?

The answer from the Pentagon is... self-defense. That's not a joke. Here was how Pentagon Spokesman Peter Cook explained it:

Our warning to the Syrians is the same that we've had for some time, that we're going to defend our forces and they would be advised not to fly in areas where our forces have been operating.

Seen in isolation, that statement sounds sort of reasonable. But in context, it is not at all.

What Cook is referring to is the open but little-discussed fact that the US has special operations troops on the ground in Syria. These troops are embedded with a Syrian Kurdish faction called the YPG, which is generally regarded as one of the US's more reliable allies in the fight against ISIS. And for the most part, the YPG has kept its focus on ISIS. Partly this may have been a matter of priorities, but it could also be explained by geography. The Kurdish forces are located primarily in the northern parts of Syria, and so most of the adjacent territory is held by ISIS rather than forces affiliated with the Syrian government. Thus, they are usually pitted against ISIS in the current conflict.

Hasaka, however, is the exception to the general rule above. Here, the YPG and the pro-government forces had generally split control of the city with relative peace, but fighting broke out in recent days.

It's not clear who started the fighting, but it is clear that the fighting has continued for multiple days. And because US special operations troops are embedded with the YPG, this means the US forces are now engaged, directly or indirectly, with forces aligned with the Syrian government.

While US proxies of some description have been engaged against the pro-government troops routinely in other parts of country, to my recollection, this is the first time a force that contained US troops was fighting directly against the Syrian regime or its partners.

And that's how we get to the pretense of self-defense advanced by the Pentagon. In an overt violation of Syrian sovereignty, international law, and the US Constitution, the US sent some 300 troops into Syria to embed with an insurgent group. This group is now fighting pro-government forces. And so the US is declaring that it will shoot down Syrian warplanes who attempt to bomb the insurgent group.

To put a finer point on it, analogies are always helpful. Of course, it's somewhat silly to speak of another country invading the US, but please humor me. Imagine the Vermont secession movement took an inexplicably violent, imperialist turn and sought to conquer the rest of New England before breaking away into an independent country. Ever interested in revenge, suppose Russia backed this secession movement and embedded some of its own elite officers within New England to help them out. Next, the US attempted to conduct airstrikes against the secessionists only to be threatened by Russian fighter jets. And Russia declares an "exclusionary zone" over the conflict area in order to "defend its forces".

That is the equivalent of the US position in Syria right now. First, we invaded, then we got in a battle with government forces, and now we are claiming self-defense. It is equal parts reckless, ridiculous, and illegal, and it is the official US policy in Syria.

This is how conflicts spiral out of control.

Newly protected from government airstrikes, the YPG is less likely to pursue a ceasefire in Hasaka against government forces. The Syrian government is similarly unlikely to surrender more territory without a fight, for fear of establishing precedent. And the US is unlikely to back down from this new policy, for fear of the domestic political fallout. (Can't you just imagine the ready-made attack lines--"The Democrats abandoned our allies on the ground in Syria, so they could appease Assad and the Ayatollah of Iran!")

The end result is an incredibly combustible situation. And if and when it explodes, there's little doubt that American politicians will breathlessly decry it as an act of aggression by the other side.

Yes, Obama's Policies Helped Create ISIS, and Bush's Helped Too

The latest hard-hitting journalism from the campaign trail is once again related to Donald Trump. The happy news is that there's at least a kernel of truth in the latest remarks, and better still, it's about foreign policy. Unfortunately, the bad news is that, as usual with Donald Trump, he doesn't have many details to back it up, and the few details he does offer, are wrong.

First, here's what he said, at a campaign rally last week:

He is the founder of ISIS. He is the founder of ISIS, okay? He is the founder. He founded ISIS. And I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton.

Since then, Trump has alternated between doubling down on this formulation and downplaying it by saying the obvious--namely that sarcasm is, in fact, a thing.

Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) "the founder" of ISIS, & MVP. THEY DON'T GET SARCASM?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2016

As the tweet above suggests, the whole episode led to a series of apparently serious journalism explaining that Obama is not literally the co-founder of ISIS. For instance, CNN's self-styled terror expert Peter Bergen wrote this rebuttal. Among its winning lines were the following:

Like so much else that Trump has said, these claims are false. The founder of ISIS is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a shadowy Iraqi cleric who President Obama is doing everything in his power to kill.

Wait, so you're telling me that Obama doesn't moonlight as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? Glad we got that cleared up, since I'm sure that's how most people interpreted Trump's remarks. After all, he's not prone to exaggeration.

Also, incidentally, the second part of Bergen's statement is wrong. In fact, President Obama is doing everything within his power and quite a few things that are beyond his power in an attempt to kill him--in particular, waging a war without Congressional authorization.

But I digress. While these various literal refutations seem merely inane at first glance, they actually serve an important purpose. By focusing the argument along the most narrow lines possible, the broader debate about America's interventionist foreign policy is avoided. The real question is whether America's interventions this century--in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere--have produced greater stability and security, or greater chaos. Any honest observer must conclude it is the latter.

In one sense, Trump is right: The blame for the ongoing, unquestioned disaster does rest on Barack Obama and on Hillary Clinton--who headed the State Department when the worst decisions were made. But it also rests on George W. Bush, and Trump was wrong to omit him.

With that framework in mind, let us briefly make note of the most salient policy disasters that helped lead to the creation of ISIS, which now has a presence in Iraq:

• Bush - Invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 2003 based on the false pretense of weapons of mass destruction.
• Bush - Occupying Iraq after the regime change, ultimately serving as a security force for a new Iraqi government, no matter how corrupt and authoritarian it became.
• Obama (and Clinton) - Overthrowing Ghadafi in Libya in 2011, based on a false pretense of an impending genocide in Benghazi.
• Obama - Backing the substantially non-moderate opposition in Syria starting around 2012, based largely in the east of country. This invariably strengthened the budding rebellion among radicals in neighboring Iraq.

Although all of these policies are awful, the last is particularly striking based on what we know now. An internal intelligence document from the Defense Intelligence Agency was recently declassified. Written in August 2012, it noted the following key things:

• That Al Qaeda in Iraq and similar extremist groups were dominant players in the Syrian rebellion
• That the Western powers, Turkey, and the Gulf States were supporting the rebellion anyway
• That the current trends could lead to the establishment of a "Salafist principality" in Syria and Iraq, but that could be useful for weakening Assad and, by extension, Iran.

In other words, Obama's own government intelligence predicted that backing the opposition in Syria risked strengthening extremist groups so much that they could eventually establish a de facto state. And in spite of this risk, he directed the CIA to do it anyway. 

Now, obviously that doesn't mean al-Baghdadi was hired by the CIA or that President Obama was trying to create a terror group that had far more power and influence than the ones that preceded it. So too, President Bush probably wasn't aspiring to light the entire Middle East on fire with the invasion of Iraq and inspire more terrorism for years to come.

But if we are going discuss foreign policy seriously, we must look beyond intentions and consider actual results.

Presidents Bush and Obama both overthrew secular dictators on false pretenses, in Iraq and Libya, apparently in the hopes that a better government would follow. Chaos followed instead. Similarly, whatever his precise intent, President Obama's policy of backing the opposition in Syria had the predictable result of strengthening extremist groups, ultimately culminating with ISIS holding substantial territory in Syria and Iraq, and Al Qaeda in Syria holding territory elsewhere in Syria.

There's no reason to think that Trump had all this history in mind when he suggested that Obama and Clinton "founded ISIS". In the remarks I've seen, the Trump camp has preferred to blame ISIS on Obama's decision to pull out of Iraq too soon. This is foolish, since the withdrawal timeline for Iraq was actually set by President Bush, and was not really the fundamental cause. One wonders what the media would do if Trump had the knowledge and guts to explain the real causes of ISIS's rise, but I doubt we'll get the chance.

Still, even if Trump himself doesn't know how America's foreign policy facilitated the rise of ISIS, it doesn't change the reality. And the reality is that we can draw a clear causal chain between the reckless decisions of the Bush Administration through to the reckless decisions of President Obama and Secretary Clinton, which ultimately helped create ISIS and the pervasive instability that reigns in the Greater Middle East.

Syria, and Obama's Don't Do Stupid Shit Rule

News on the ongoing quagmire in Syria took an unexpected turn last week. In the wake of the recent terror attack, we expected, and heard, numerous demands to expand bombing campaigns against ISIS. What was less expected was the internal letter that surfaced in the State Department with 51 diplomats doing what US diplomats do best--advocate for war. But the war they want is against the government of Syria, rather than ISIS.

The timing of this is confusing, given that ISIS terrorism was the top foreign policy issue of the week and the Syrian government is one of the key enemies of ISIS. But the actual policy isn't a terribly new idea. The question of whether to bomb the government in Syria, for one purpose or another, has been seriously contemplated since at least late 2013 when video of a chemical weapons attack in Syria went viral.* US public opposition managed to silence the war drums in that case, but the policy remained on the table. The US Government eventually started bombing terrorist targets in Syria in late 2014 and have continued since. To date, however, the bombs haven't been turned on the Syrian government.

Despite no formal bombing, it would be a mistake to assume the US has been de facto aligned with the Syrian government in the fight against terrorist groups. President Obama and others in the Administration have frequently said that Assad must go. On the ground, the US has attempted to implement this regime change policy with covert action by arming Al Qaeda-linked rebel groups that are fighting the Assad government. This has been going on since sometime in 2012. This contrasts with the common narrative on the subject that the US actions have only been aimed against the terror groups. In fact, the US Government has effectively been fighting on both sides of the same war--quite literally, in some instances.

Fighting on both sides of the same war isn't good for anyone besides the weapons manufacturers. But it illustrates the challenge that Syria presents. As is so often the case, there are no good options in Syria. The Obama Administration has responded to this by effectively choosing both without committing 100% to either path.

It would be far better, however, if the US stayed out of the situation entirely. Such a position is not an endorsement of the status quo, but a recognition that there is no plausible way for the US to improve the situation and a great many ways that we could make it worse.

To fully understand why this is the case, we recommend a recent article at The Week written by Bonnie Kristian. In the piece, Kristian reminds readers of President Obama's original, and laudable foreign policy rule, namely "Don't do stupid shit." But then she shows how our current intervention in Syria is a clear deviation from this principle, much like Libya was before it.

In brief, Kristian contemplates the three possible outcomes of current US policy considerations:
1. Focused efforts on destroying ISIS, thereby further empowering the Assad regime.
2. Focus efforts on destroying the Assad regime, thereby further empowering ISIS and Al Qaeda or other extremists, much as happened in Libya. Or,
3. Destroy both simultaneously (which would almost certainly require US occupation) and then the US is stuck trying to rebuild Syrian society from scratch. Recent experience in Iraq and Afghanistan suggests that is unlikely to end well.

The conclusion is clear. Obama needs to get back to his professed rule: Stop doing stupid shit.

Here's the link:

How Obama Abandoned His 'Don't Do Stupid Sh-t' Mantra

*Readers will note that this attack was originally blamed on the Assad government by the USA. Subsequent journalism, however, showed that the qui bono approach offered the correct understanding. In fact, it was a false flag attack perpetrated by the Syrian opposition (with the Al Qaeda faction taking the lead) with a goal of getting the US to intervene on their side. The US deeply wanted to take the bait, but public opinion ultimately prevented it.

Syrian Islamists Fight for Practical Reasons, Not Ideological Ones

Our main story today is a new study which involved personal interviews with over 300 Syrians to understand why so many have joined the ongoing civil war. Interviews were conducted with people who have already participated in the war and those actively considering it, as well as family and community members.

The study found that an overwhelming majority of Syrians were motivated to join the civil war (against President Assad) based on pragmatic and political reasons, not religious ones. Even those Syrians who have joined the radical Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, Jabhat Al-Nusra, still cited very practical reasons for their decisions. Some of them join because all other economic opportunities have been decimated as a result of war. Others joined out of desire for revenge, gravitating toward extreme groups like Al-Nusra because they've proven to be among the most effective fighting forces against the Syrian government.

All of this matters because it goes against the prevailing understanding that is taken for granted in the West. It's true that the situation in Syria is somewhat different than the one that currently prevails in Afghanistan or Iraq. In Afghanistan and Iraq, Islamic movements that rise up against the central government (which is backed by the US in both countries) are automatically considered militants and/or terrorists by default. But in Syria, many in the West look favorably upon the rebellion, as a kind of grassroots push for democracy or self-governance. And initially, that may have been the dominant drive. But today in Syria, the most extreme groups, like Al-Nusra, Ahrar Al-Sham, and ISIS, are also the most significant forces combating the Syrian government. If these same forces were fighting against the government of Saudi Arabia or Qatar, they would be uniformly denounced as terrorists. But since they're fighting a government we oppose, members and allies of Al-Nusra and Ahrar Al-Sham often get referred by the more favorable term of "rebels" instead. It's more a function of semantics than any meaningful difference between the prevailing ideology of each group's leadership. All these groups, from ISIS to Ahrar Al-Sham share a fundamentalist version of Sunni Islam, use suicide terrorism as a tactic, and have no qualms about attacking civilians.

Thus, this new study is really telling us what causes people to join extreme militant or terrorist groups. And the  answer is not religion. For many Syrians, even the path to joining Al-Nusra (again, a group that celebrates 9/11), is not about religion. It's about practical desperation, survival, and, in some cases, vengeance. Islam is the banner these groups often fall under, but it is not the main source for its members.

This in turn, should have major implications for US policy. If the source of terrorism / extremism is primarily about practical and political considerations (economic desperation, family members killed, etc.) rather than ideological ones (they hate us because we're free, seriously?), obviously the solution required is rather different. Expanded bombing campaigns is unlikely to do the trick, and neither is funding moderate Islamic preachers. Instead, we should simply try to stop the actions that helped cause these grievances in the first place--stop supporting brutal dictatorships in the Middle East, stop constant drone attacks and their inevitable collateral damage, and stop engaging in regime change operations, that almost always produce a more desperate and dire situation in their wake. It won't solve the problem of terrorism overnight, but it could stop a lot of the recruiting in the future. It's certainly better than our current approach, which amounts to trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

For more, check out The Intercept's write-up on this study. And note that the piece is so critical of the Syrian government that it almost seems to be calling for the US to do more to overthrow the government. (I don't think the author actually holds that view, but it'd be easy to interpret that from this piece.) While it's unquestionable that President Assad is a terrible human being, it's not at all clear how regime change would be helpful for the people of Syria. Obviously, Libya was not improved by the overthrow of Qaddafi, even though he was a similarly brutal dictator. Anyways, with that disclaimer, here's the link:

Trauma and Deprivation Lead Syrian Youths to Extremist Groups, Says New Report

Other News of Note
Hillary Email Scandal Update
A new inspector general report from the State Department has concluded that Hillary did indeed violate department procedures and guidelines with her private email set up. However, the report also indicated prior Secretaries of State also violated the rules, if in less severe ways. Naturally, the Hillary camp is emphasizing that she just did what everyone else did. It's unclear whether the new report will actually lead to any legal proceedings--but given that Hillary is still an incredibly powerful politician, the smart money says it will not.

Obama Administration Breaks Ground on Breaking Promises

You don't have to observe American politics for very long to understand that politicians routinely break their promises. This is especially true and obvious when it comes to US Presidents. In some cases, the promises seem to be sincere and the president may have even really tried to get them implemented, only to be blocked by political obstruction in Congress. In other cases, it's more clear that the promise was nothing more than a rhetorical flourish in the first place.

Of course, our political campaign system is very much structured to produce this effect. In the primary, Democrats usually run to the left on everything; in recent years, this has meant advocating more for peace and civil liberties. Then in the general election, they walk many of these ideas back and try to prove they're just as tough as the Republicans are. For Republicans, this works in the opposite direction. The primary typically sees them take more extreme and awful positions on foreign policy, torture, etc., and then they try to pretend to be a little less inclined toward violence in the general election. The inevitable result is that the same candidate will often take different, and contradictory, positions as they move from the primary to the general election. And if they get to the White House, they often change their another time, either in response to political realities they confront or because they no longer need to appeal to the American people, at least for the time-being.

So campaign promises get broken all the time, and it's pretty much par for the course at this point. Ambitious declarations immediately upon winning an election or taking office can basically be seen in the same way. Thus, although President Obama declared that Guantanamo Bay would be closed within a year of taking office, this went the way of most promises--unfulfilled.

Recently, President Obama has taken the usual political art of breaking promises to an entirely new level. Back in 2013, the Obama Administration suffered a devastating defeat in its first push for initiating a major war with Syria. They intended to let Congress weigh in on the proposal, and when it became clear that the pro-war side was going to lose that vote, it was promptly canceled.

In the aftermath of this, the Administration realized it needed a better and more subtle approach to get the American people to accept another military intervention. The rise of ISIS certainly helped provide a more compelling rationale for US involvement than President Assad of Syria ever could. But that alone probably wouldn't be sufficient to justify another US war in the Middle East, when none of the others have worked.

Thus, to mollify American fears of an extended conflict and more Americans getting sacrificed for an obviously counterproductive policy, Obama pledged that there would be "no boots on the ground". With each escalation in Iraq and Syria, this refrain was offered. And now, with the regular announcements of more troops in Iraq and Syria, it's been proven false.

It's tempting, of course, to see this as just another broken promise from a politician. And in some ways, it is. But it's also different and worse in two important respects.

First, this wasn't a campaign promise. President Obama made this pledge repeatedly while he was president. He knew all of the political realities. And since it's in the realm of foreign policy, where the president has near-complete discretion (in the modern era), this was entirely within his own power. Congress barely has enough initiative to pass a budget; it certainly doesn't have the wherewithal to start (or even declare) a new war. Thus, this is an area where President Obama basically cannot be forced to take an action he disagrees with. Yet, he did it anyway. And he did it in spite of no ISIS- or Syria-directed plot on American soil. (The reader will recall that the San Bernardino attack occurred relatively recently, after the pledge had already been broken, and was not organized by ISIS anyway, though the attackers did sympathize with their cause.)

The second way that the Obama Administration's conduct is now unique and tragically worse is the way it has tried to deny their dishonesty. At first, this meant trying to change the meaning of "no boots on the ground" to mean no large battalions on the ground. And now, they appear to have pivoted to outright denying the pledge ever occurred in the first place.

In a recent press conference, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby denied that anyone ever said there would be "no boots on the ground" in spite of the fact that this can be disproved in all of three seconds with a Google search. It's tough to imagine John Kirby actually believes this, given that it's his whole job to know and defend the Administration's / Pentagon's talking points. So instead, we must assume it's a deliberate PR decision to openly troll the American media and public to see just how quickly we are all willing to forget things that even the most casual observer has to still know. Every President and politician tries to rewrite history in their favor, but the Obama Administration appears to be breaking new ground by trying to do it so quickly and blatantly. It remains to be seen whether many people will notice and care. Given that it's on an issue as important as war and peace, let's hope the answer is yes.

For more on this, and to read the funny-if-it-wasn't-sad exchange where Kirby tries to deny reality, check out Justin Raimondo's write-up at Antiwar.com:

Orwell's Ghost Is Laughing

Major New Developments in Syria--For Once, Not Entirely Bad

There's been big news on the Syria Front, and it could have significant implications for the fledgling peace process that is currently underway.

Syrian Kurds Poised to Declare Autonomous Region
Up first, the Syrian Kurds are planning to declare an autonomous, federal region within the areas of northern Syria that they already control. The formal declaration hadn't occurred at the time of this writing, but it appears it will fall short of declaring outright independence from Syria proper. On the contrary, the Syrian Kurds are suggesting this federalized model could be extended as a model for a Syria.

At the risk of sounding patronizing, it might be useful to clarify what precisely "federal" means in this context. In the US, the term "federal" has a confusing connotation to it. After all, in US history, it was the Federalist Papers that ultimately convinced the newly freed colonies to ratify the US Constitution which created a much stronger central government than before. Similarly, given how large and wide-reaching the US government is today, you could be forgiven for thinking of federal as short-hand for a powerful central government.

In its more native usage, however, it really means the opposite. A federalized system is one in which the central government typically has relatively little authority and leaves a lot of the decisions up to the various underlying subregions (states, provinces, cantons, etc.). That's what the Syrian Kurds are hoping for as the eventual outcome of the Syrian War.

And as models go, you could do a lot worse. From an economics standpoint, federalized systems are appealing for two key reasons. First, they offer the opportunity for experimentation with different policies, and would potentially allow citizens to more readily move to a region that fits their political or economic preferences. For instance, it's easier for me to move from Oregon to New Hampshire in the US, than it is for me to move from Oregon to, say, Switzerland. Ultimately, the federal system can allow subregions to compete against each other to lure people and businesses to their area. Over time, we would expect this to produce better policies than a governing system that is more monolithic.

In the context of an ongoing civil war, another aspect of federalism might be even more valuable. It virtually goes without saying that there is a lot of deep mistrust and resentment on all sides of the Syrian conflict. Given this, how likely is it that they are going to be able to agree on what the new government will look like? Will there be free and fair elections? Even if there are, will all sides really accept the outcome as final or just resume fighting if they don't get what they want? It's tough to see how this all ends well. But one thing that could be helpful is to lower the stakes. If a more federalized model is embraced, the central government is weakened and it matters less which people and parties get to lead it.

While, on the surface, the Kurdish proposal seems reasonable enough, it does not look like it is going to be well-received by many of the players in the peace process. The ruling Syrian government opposes it, the US opposes it, and Turkey is probably plotting more shelling or airstrikes against the Syrian Kurds as a response (unfortunately, that's not hyperbole). The US apparently rests its opposition to the move on the idea that the US will only accept a federalized solution if it emerges through the peace process. But this is obviously a bit ironic since the Syrian Kurds in question were excluded from said peace process (most likely at Turkey's behest). Indeed, their exclusion is what appears to have prompted this announcement in the first place.

As a clarification here, we should point out that we're not suggesting the US take any particular stance on the Kurdish announcement. We have previously argued, on the related question of outright Kurdish independence, that this is a very volatile and complicated issue that the US best avoid taking sides in. From the standpoint of the American people, that seems to remain the most sensible policy today as well.

But if the US is going to be sitting at the negotiating table, we'd probably prefer they were supporting a federal option instead of just reiterating the untenable demand that Assad must go. The former has at least some chance of since; the latter just ensures the war will continue.

Russian Force Withdrawal
The other big news story this week is that Russia announced they will begin removing most of their forces in Syria this week, having achieved their objectives. This development is important, and positive, for several key reasons:

First and foremost, it should reduce tensions between the US and Russia over time. One of the US government's key talking points on Russia has been the idea that they were somehow hellbent on rekindling a world empire after their actions in Crimea and Syria. This never made much sense, but that didn't stop it from gaining wide currency in the US media. At its most hysterical pitch, the reliable Senator McCain could be found blaming Obama's weakness for allowing Russia to reinsert itself in the Middle East. Given how well it's worked out for the US, it's not altogether clear why this was supposed to be a bad thing, even if it were true--the most likely answer being that John McCain is fascinated by the game of Risk and desperately wanted to live it out in real life. In any case, however, it turns out that wasn't true. Or if it was, Russia's new Middle Eastern empire was the shortest in history.

Second, a reduced Russian presence should translate into fewer airstrikes occurring in Syria, and along with that, fewer civilian casualties.

And finally, the removal of Russia's significant military aid to Syria may make Assad more eager to negotiate a peaceful settlement quickly. The Syrian military made significant gains with Russia's help. It is not immediately clear whether those gains would be reversed when the support is removed, but it is a real possibility. Thus, Assad has a clear incentive to negotiate a settlement while he is in relatively good shape and avoid the potential erosion of his position in the future.

Finally, for more commentary and analysis on the Russian withdrawal, we recommend a new piece by Ray McGovern at Antiwar.com. If podcasts are more your thing, you can also check out Ray's interview on the Scott Horton Show, which addresses this same topic. (Note: it's part of the 3/16 show if you go that route.)

Syria Ceasefire Deal Reached

There is a bit of good news in the foreign policy world today as a tentative ceasefire deal was reached on Syria among the major players. Of course, there are a lot of different sides in the Syria conflict. But the two most important sides are the Syrian government, backed by Russia and Iran, and the US-led coalition, which includes a limited number of rebel factions within Syria.

While this is certainly a positive development, it remains to be seen how much impact it will have on the ground. The rebel factions, outside of the outright jihadist groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS, are a very disjointed group. Thus, although the US and a purported representative of the rebels agreed to the ceasefire, it's not clear that the actual rebel groups will cease the fighting on the ground. That is certainly what we can hope for.

Coincidentally, ISIS and Al Qaeda were not included in the ceasefire discussion, which means the air campaign against both groups (and the civilians around them) will continue unabated in any case.

To get a better understanding of this story, we're recommending two pieces today. Up first is a recent article by Gareth Porter writing at Antiwar.com. Porter argues convincingly that the prospects for a sustainable peace in Syria have increased as Russian intervention appears to have successfully shored up the Syrian government's grip on power. Note that this is in no way an endorsement of that intervention, which has certainly led to many civilian casualties (like all bombing campaigns). But the Russian-Syrian side of this conflict has appeared to be more open to a peaceful solution than the US and the opposition it supported which were intent on regime change. Of course, the Russian-Syrian side was interested in peace precisely because that would be more likely to result in stability for the government, which was desperately needed after a years-long civil war. But it was genuine. Meanwhile, the opposition had little to gain from a peace settlement, and none occurred.

Porter argues that recent gains by Syria and Russia on the ground have changed this calculation. Now that the opposition is weakened, perpetuating the conflict no longer furthers the goal of regime change in Syria. And accordingly, the US and its opposition were willing to talk.

This recent ceasefire agreement is the apparent outcome. And for more on the agreement itself, we recommend this short summary from the ever-reliable Jason Ditz, also at Antiwar.com.