Assad shows no willingness to compromise

Syria peace talks

CAIRO: As the Syria peace talks resume next week, President Bashar al-Assad, backed militarily by Iran and Russia, shows no willingness to compromise, much less step aside to allow a transition Western powers claim is the solution to the conflict.

Threatened by rebel advances last year, Assad is now pumped up with confidence after Russian air strikes reversed the tide and enabled his army to recover lost ground from Sunni insurgents as well as the Jihadis of Islamic State.

While Syria experts doubt he can recapture the whole country without an unlikely full-scale ground intervention by Russia and Iran, they also doubt President Vladimir Putin will force him out - unless there is a clear path to stability, which could take years.

Instead, Russia’s dramatic military intervention last September -- after five years of inconclusive fighting between Assad and fragmented rebel groups mostly from Syria’s Sunni majority -- has tilted the balance of power in his favour and given him the upper hand at the talks in Geneva.

The main target of the Russian air force bombardment was mainstream and Islamist forces that launched an offensive last summer.

Only recently have Russia and Syrian forces taken the fight to Islamic State, notably by recapturing Palmyra, the Graeco-Roman city the jihadis overran last year.

The Russian campaign, backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and militia such as Lebanon’s Hizbullah, has for now outmatched the rebels, including the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and units supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and the United States.

Dealing with those groups rather than Islamic State seemed the main aim of Moscow’s intervention, analysts say.

"The Russian intervention fundamentally reshaped the Syrian conflict," says Kheder Khaddour from the Carnegie Middle East Centre."

"The momentum of the rebels does not exist any more."

Putin, diplomats say, weakened the opposition to coax it into accepting a settlement on Russian and Syrian terms.

That does not mean the "transitional authority" sought by the US and its allies, but a government expanded to include elements of the opposition, with Assad at its head for the immediate future.

Russia still wants Assad to lead the transition to the elections, while the opposition and its regional allies, including the United States and Europe, insist he should step down. So far no compromises are in sight.

"We need things to advance in the coming weeks. If the political process is just about putting a few opposition people in nominal cabinet posts then this isn’t going to go very far," said a European diplomat close to the talks."

"If there isn’t a political transition the civil war will continue and Islamic State will benefit from it," he said.

Fawaz Gerges, author of ISIS: A History, said: "At this point the Russians have the upper hand in dictating a solution. The Americans are playing on Russia’s playing field."

His judgment is underlined by Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, who boasted in a recent interview that "the Americans understand they can do nothing without Russia. They can no longer solve serious problems on their own".

Yet uncertainty surrounds Moscow’s intentions, after Putin suddenly withdrew part of his forces from Syria last month. That led to speculation among Assad’s enemies that Russia was contemplating whether to ditch Assad - an outcome many Syria watchers find highly improbable.

"The key issue remains when and if the Russians will act to facilitate this transition. It’s unclear, and we get the feeling that the recent talks didn’t change much in the Russian position," the European diplomat said.