Two airstrikes\u00a0\u2014\u00a0one by the coalition fighting the Islamic State group misdirected against a Syrian Army unit, and another apparently by Russian military air against a United Nations humanitarian relief convoy\u00a0\u2014\u00a0seem to have shattered the prospects for a cessation of hostilities and joint American-Russian targeting of armed extremists.
US Secretary of State John Kerry\u2019s search for common ground with Moscow has had no shortage of critics, including this writer. The prospect of military collaboration between American and Russian militaries in Syria is troubling given the track record of Russian aerial assets, whose appetite for engaging civilian medical facilities is particularly appalling.\u00a0The absence of consequences for noncompliance by the Assad regime with American-Russian undertakings is telling.\u00a0The piling of risk onto the backs of Syrian rebels disposed to cooperate with the US is unworthy.\u00a0Yet the undertaking has had one central merit: It aims to end mass homicide and collective punishment in western Syria, the overwhelming bulk of which is the work of the Assad regime and its two principal enablers: Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kerry has been fixated on several indisputable facts.\u00a0First, the civilian-centric war of the Assad regime has created a humanitarian abomination nearly indescribable in its horror.\u00a0Second, the abomination has had dire consequences for American friends and allies in the region and beyond, spawning (among other things) a migrant crisis roiling the politics of Western Europe in ways Moscow finds pleasing.\u00a0Third, mass homicide forms the core of the Assad regime\u2019s political survival strategy: The regime was deeply alarmed when a cessation of hostilities seemed to be working in late February and early March of this year.\u00a0And fourth, the industrial-strength targeting of civilians in their markets, mosques, hospitals and homes has produced a recruiting bonanza for ISIS and other al-Qaida-related or -descended entities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kerry has, at least, tried to address the center of gravity in Syria\u2019s agonizing downward spiral: the protection of civilians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the initiative dies, the choice for American policy is stark: go to a real Plan B challenging the Assad mass-murder free ride, or fall back on the arm\u2019s-length observer approach to slaughter in Syria that has produced unintended, negative policy consequences across the board.\u00a0Kerry\u2019s recent statement to National Public Radio about the only alternative to his initiative being resumption of official American passivity in the face of civilian mass casualties was ill-advised, but chillingly likely to be true.\u00a0Passivity\u00a0\u2014\u00a0at least in a meaningful, operational sense \u2014\u00a0has been the hallmark of the Obama administration’s policy for five years. Unless US President Barack\u00a0Obama changes his approach and materially challenges the Assad regime\u2019s cost-free campaign of mass homicide, how can the alternative to Kerry\u2019s initiative be anything other than that described by America\u2019s chief diplomat?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John Kerry deserves a chance to resurrect the prospect of a real ceasefire.\u00a0Without leverage\u00a0\u2014\u00a0without the ability to share a credible “or else” with his Russian counterpart\u00a0\u2014\u00a0his odds of success are not good.\u00a0But if the alternative is: “we sit there and do nothing”\u00a0\u2014\u00a0as Kerry told radio listeners\u00a0\u2014\u00a0then Godspeed, John Kerry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If, on the other hand, the American commander in chief determines that the wholesale slaughter of civilians by the Assad regime runs counter to the interests of the US and its allies, he will direct his defense secretary to produce options to exact a price.\u00a0This is not about invasion and occupation.\u00a0It is not about protecting everyone in all places at all times.\u00a0It is about confronting physical and moral cowards with cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking to the UN Security Council on Sept. 21, a clearly distressed Kerry said the following: “So I want to emphasize this, and I emphasize this to Russia: The United States continues to believe there is a way forward that, although rocky and difficult and uncertain, can provide the most viable path out of the carnage. Our shared task here is to find a way to use the tools of diplomacy to make that happen, and that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019ve been trying to accomplish.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tools employed by John Kerry to date have been those of energy, persistence, and charisma.\u00a0They are, considering the nature of those for whom civilian slaughter is as natural as breathing in and out, insufficient.\u00a0Arthur Miller would have described him as “a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine.”\u00a0He deserves a better toolkit from his Oval Office boss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frederic C. Hof, director at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, served as a special adviser for transition in Syria at the US State Department in 2012.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two airstrikes seem to have shattered the prospects for a cessation of hostilities and joint American-Russian targeting of armed extremists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":58790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":66,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[44,66,8,11,68,47,17,19,48],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1087],"class_list":["post-26544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budget","category-commentary","category-congress","category-global","category-intercepts","category-mideast-africa","category-opinion","category-pentagon","category-the-americas"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"O4ZYKJLBUREVTD2IRGHP2S6TEA","arc_canonical_url":"\/opinion\/commentary\/2016\/09\/21\/syria-picking-up-the-pieces\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n