The growing, if reluctant, convergence of the Obama administration with Russia on the four-year Syrian conflict for the first time took concrete form last week in a pair of United Nations Security Council resolutions marshaling international enforcement action against Da'esh, the self-styled Islamic State, and laying out the road map to end the Syrian civil war.
Over the same few days, the American presidential debates revealed deep cleavages among candidates of both U.S. political parties over what should be Washington's goals and priorities in the conflict - fissures that ironically give Obama more political flexibility at home to forge a compromise deal abroad.
The Security Council's twin actions reflect the growing international alarm about the violent reach of Da'esh, the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and a near-universal determination to suffocate it both financially and militarily. Compared to the urgency of this threat, longstanding--and long frustrated--hopes by foreign powers to secure victory for their favorite sides in the Syrian civil war seem now to take a back seat.
On December 17, finance ministers of Security Council member states assembled in New York to adopt a resolution specifically adding Da'esh and the jihadist Al-Nusra front to the post-9/11 Al-Qaeda sanctions list of terrorist groups whose financial flows nations are required to suppress. "Direct or indirect trade, in particular of oil and oil products," from Da'esh-controlled territory --which Russia has accused Turkey of facilitating --was thus proscribed, along with trade in antiquities.
The next day, Council foreign ministers met to adopt the resolution setting out the timetable and U.N. mandates for achieving a Syrian political settlement, calling for a transitional administration, a new constitution, "free and fair elections" by 2017 "under the supervision of the United Nations" to choose a new government, and a nationwide ceasefire.
That ceasefire would not, however, extend to Da'esh or Al-Nusra; indeed, choosing its words with perhaps intentional irony, the Security Council calls on member states "to eradicate the safe haven [that Da'esh and Al-Nusra] have established" on Syrian territory, seemingly a de facto authorization of international use of military force against these groups even without specific consent from the Damascus government.
The irony, of course, is that "safe havens" are exactly what advocates of Western military intervention in Syria have demanded over the course of the war, albeit to protect other armed foes of Bashar al-Assad's government rather than Da'esh. But what once seemed Washington's consensus critique of Obama's restraint regarding Syria is now eroding.
True, in last week's Republican debate Jeb Bush reiterated his call for "a no-fly zone, safe zones there for refugees and to build a military force." In the Democratic debate, Hillary Rodham Clinton also called for a no-fly zone "to create those safe refuges within Syria, to try to protect people on the ground" from Assad's forces and Da'esh. Military intervention "gives us some leverage" with the Russians, she said, and reassures rebel fighters "whose principal goal is getting rid of Assad."
The other Democratic presidential candidates would have none of it. "Secretary Clinton is too much into regime change," Vermont senator Bernie Sanders declared. "It is not Assad who is attacking the United States. It is ISIS.... The United States, at the same time, cannot successfully fight Assad and ISIS." Maryland's Martin O'Malley took aim at Obama as well as Mrs. Clinton, asserting that "we shouldn't be the ones declaring that Assad must go."
Bush's rivals on the Republican side are also divided. Fellow Floridian Marco Rubio sees Assad as "a puppet of Iran" and vows to "embed additional American special operators" alongside unspecified "Sunni Arabs." Also drawing an elliptical link with Iran, New Jersey's Chris Christie warns that "if you miss Iran, you are not going to get ISIS," and insists he would order the downing of any Russian aircraft that entered his no-fly zone. For Ohio governor John Kasich, "Assad is aligned with Iran and Russia. He has to go." Moreover, Kasich would dispatch U.S. ground troops against Da'esh--"massively."
But three other Republican contenders vigorously contest the calls to enter the fray against Assad. "It is a crazy notion," Kentucky's Rand Paul declares: "Topple Assad. And then there will be chaos, and I think ISIS will then be in charge of Syria." Texas hard-liner Ted Cruz--famous for his vow to "carpet bomb ISIS into oblivion"--likewise warns that "if we toppled Assad, the result will be ISIS will take over Syria," and scorns Washington's search "for these mythical moderate rebels. It's like a purple unicorn. They never exist. These moderate rebels end up being jihadists."
Republican front-runner Donald Trump expresses a simple logic: "We have to do one thing at a time. We can't be fighting ISIS and fighting Assad. Assad is fighting ISIS. And Iran is fighting ISIS. We have to get rid of ISIS first."
The intensifying debate within both parties over whether the United States should really be pursuing Assad's overthrow gives Obama a freer hand in pressing forward with Russia, Europe, and Middle Eastern states on a Syrian settlement. If grinding military stalemate is the prerequisite for political compromise, Syrians may be reaching that point. Certainly states in and outside the region are now prioritizing destruction of Da'esh over dismantling of Assad's regime.
Assad has acknowledged that the war is wearing down his forces, and his failure to score significant territorial gains this fall even with Russian military help (and his deepening dependence on that help) potentially make him more amenable to compromise than he was in the last face-to-face negotiations two years ago.
The Syrian rebels too may be feeling strain in replacing casualties, and have scored little visible progress on the ground. Washington has quietly backed away from their ardent insistence on Assad's departure as a precondition for a settlement, but whether it or Saudi Arabia can deliver the most ardent rebel fighters to accept a deal with Assad's secular regime is unsure. Even the New York Times opines it "would be shameful if such a butcher was allowed to run in elections," and Western foreign ministers voting at the Security Council on December 18 warned that a figure who is now so polarizing can never hope to lead Syria to reconciliation.
After so much destruction, it is hard to imagine Assad could win a free and fair election, but the Russians seem determined to allow him to run if he insists. In any event, U.N. war crimes investigations, or the fear of renewed civil war, could dim his electoral luster among the core constituencies that have stuck by him--secular-minded business and professional classes, Christians, and his own Alawite coreligionists.
The Security Council added another confidence-building resolution on December 22: a demand, backed by Russia, that the Syrian government allow U.N. humanitarian aid shipments to reach civilians in rebel-held territory. The first sign of whether Russia is able to nudge its ally in Damascus toward compromise--and give rebel groups a stake in negotiating a political compromise tomorrow--may well be whether it can deliver this tangible relief today.