Obama’s Card in Syria: Putin

While the massacre continues in Syria and a series of car bombs sow destruction just beyond the Turkish border, Washington and a number of Eastern capitals are struggling to decide whether to intervene or not intervene, whether to support the opposition or to fear their ties with al-Qaida, and whether to consider the chemical weapons “red line” as having been crossed or to wait for an unlikely check on their use.

Europe is once again divided. Obama is trying to stall, but the torment of both sides is already at the breaking point. Political action must be taken for everyone’s sake. After 26 months of impotence “something” must be done to put an end to the Syrian massacres. After 70,000 deaths (in reality there have probably been many more), after 5 million refugees (counting those internal and those sheltered abroad), after clear signs that the conflict is growing, those who care about the world cannot continue to remain at the window. And who in the world cares more than the United States?

The U.S. is the classic superpower that does not want to stain its image and influence with passivity; Barack Obama has attempted to counter this urge with rational arguments. The White House’s political stance, from the beginning, has been to disentangle itself from wars, to not get involved in them. Iraq and Afghanistan testify to this, as does the prudence shown in Libya. Moreover, there are three obstacles that are anything but small.

First, if America decides to move it must do so on a large scale and achieve guaranteed success — while sending in ground troops, except for specific missions, remains ruled out. Second, they would inevitably have to give sophisticated weapons — anti-aircraft and anti-tank — to the rebel groups, the strongest and most effective of which are potentially composed of future enemies such as jihadists and supporters of al-Qaida. Third, even indirect participation in the Syrian civil war would bring the U.S. into the center of the Sunni-Shiite conflict that already involves the entire region, bringing closer a future clash with Iran that Washington does not yet want and making it more difficult to withdraw in the future.

Nevertheless, the humanitarian crisis has reached an unsustainable level and America can no longer keep its hands in its pockets. Nor can it help the anti-Assad rebels, the Sunnis, in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Obama understands that there is little room to maneuver, but one last card remains: Russia.

Meaning, the involvement of Putin in a new Geneva conference modeled on that of last June, with representatives of both the rebels and government present, having as an objective the passing of a ceasefire and, shortly thereafter, a period of political transition.

It is toward this common objective that Moscow and Washington, since the beginning of the crisis, have frenetically been working. This is the project that shapes John Kerry’s itinerary; his long stop in Rome has underlined his role as “facilitator,” which he has been assuming in Italy with regard to Syria and other contentious countries. It is toward this unpublished Obama-Putin alliance that the unhappy rebels are pushing, while Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are more cautious.

It looks like the diplomatic convention, however, will be difficult to organize. After much blood and much fear for survival, will Assad and his adversaries really be willing to negotiate? Who will guarantee Putin’s choices now that Minister Lavrov has proved so ambiguous about the consignment of anti-air S-300 missiles to Damascus? Above all, if Assad’s fate continues to remain unclear — like the fate of the Cold War — the resolutions of the second Geneva conference will meet the same end as those of the first: They will be tragically ignored.

We should never give up our hope, but its fragility is obvious. It is also obvious that the conference sponsored by the United States and Russia will be Obama’s last attempt at prudence. In case of failure it will not be possible to continue to beat around the bush, despite the solidity of the White House’s arguments thus far. If nothing else, Obama will be able to say that he tried everything and that he implicitly did not agree. But the face of America, that which is seen by the rest of the world, will only have the choice between weapons supplies, airstrikes, the creation of no-fly zones, buffer zones and humanitarian corridors. It will all go well, because the important thing is “to do something.”