WarSclerotic

The crisis in Syria is not going to be solved by diplomacy. In places such as Syria or Iran, diplomacy is used by unenlightened regimes as a stall tactic and as a means to enhance their survivability.

The latest understanding between Washington and Moscow, struck by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on his visit to Russia last week, should sound alarm bells among rebel groups.

While everyone agrees that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad crossed the red line a long time ago, Washington has effectively let the Russians pull Assad up precisely when he was about to rebound. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming visit to Moscow is directly related to what has been taking place in Syria. For the umpteenth time, Israel is going to try to postpone the delivery of the S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to a country that could unravel overnight. What it looks like in the aftermath of the conflict is anyone’s guess. Russia’s interests are not necessarily the West’s. Russia wants to sell military equipment as fast as possible and as much as possible.

Russia likes good customers such as Syria. This is not going to be easy for Netanyahu. Russia has been zealously protecting the Syrian regime, not only because it is its only remaining ally in the Middle East. The USSR may be gone but the crisis in Syria has reminded Russians of their past glory. This nostalgia is what has led President Vladimir Putin to pursue a Cold War foreign policy agenda when it comes to Syria. The Obama administration is not wired for war, and that is why the upcoming conference in Geneva is very likely to have zero impact, like past summits on Syria. Assad is adept at reading the tea leaves.

Had the geo-political reality been different Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan could have been instrumental by joining Netanyahu on his visit to Russia. The bombings in Hatay province in southern Turkey over the weekend have only made Ankara more angry at Assad and it is now more determined to see him go.

As mentioned, the international community is intent on holding a conference in Geneva even though the one in June 2012 was a failure and the agreed-upon political transition was never implemented. When it comes to crisis resolution, the effectiveness of military operations has historically exceeded that of international conferences many times over, despite the media hype and prestige associated with the latter. But the Russians have successfully steered the Syrian crisis to its current juncture. If it was up to Moscow, the 1999 Kosovo crisis would have been dealt with through negotiations. There is no doubt that then Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic would have approved. But ultimately war broke out and the conflict was resolved.

What’s sad about all this, besides the 80,000 that have been killed in Syria, is that both Russia and the U.S. want to give diplomacy another chance by holding this conference. Obama wants to be remembered as someone who ended wars. As such, the most he is willing to do militarily is to approve drone missions and authorize targeted killings from a base in Nevada.

The path to a resolution in Syria passes through Moscow. Policy makers in Jerusalem have realized that a long time ago. There has been an uninterrupted flow of arms from Russia to Syria all through the fighting. Moscow has also torpedoed the passage of U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at ending the conflict. Moscow has recently noted that Assad had crossed a red line and that someone in Syria has been in overdrive mode as of late. That is why it has decided to intervene. Not because it wants Assad out, but because it wants to make sure he stays.

That is why it should not come as a surprise that Damascus has welcomed the newly struck understanding between Moscow and Washington. Assad has bought some time, and so has Iran.