Analyst Upbeat about Upcoming Syria Talks in Kazakhstan

“This is the first time that the Tripartite of Great Powers between Russia, Iran, and Turkey is cooperating in a multilateral fashion to resolve the War of Terror on Syria, and this alone tremendously raises hopes that some tangible progress can finally be made,” Andrew Korybko said in an interview with Tasnim. 

“If Astana can serve as the first step in bringing all sides together, even if only partially and imperfectly, then it could realistically pave the way for bringing an end to the War on Syria,” the Analyst said.

Andrew Korybko is a political analyst, journalist and a regular contributor to several online journals, as well as a member of the expert council for the Institute of Strategic Studies and Predictions at the People’s Friendship University of Russia.

The full text of the interview is as follows:

Tasnim: As you know, the Astana negotiations will be held between representatives from the Damascus government and foreign-sponsored opposition groups on January 23 in Kazakhstan. Will the peace talks really be able to end the suffering of the Syrian people? How do you see Turkey’s role in the upcoming talks as a previous backer of the rebels in Syria?

Korybko: The upcoming intra-Syrian dialogue is a very welcome event which significantly enhances the prospects for bringing peace to the war-torn country. The reason for this isn’t simply because both sides are entering into discussions yet again, but because of how the negotiations are organized. This is the first time that the Tripartite of Great Powers between Russia, Iran, and Turkey is cooperating in a multilateral fashion to resolve the War of Terror on Syria, and this alone tremendously raises hopes that some tangible progress can finally be made. Up until this point, Turkey had been the most disruptive and dangerous state waging asymmetrical war on the Syrian Arab Republic, but due to a confluence of domestic and international factors, President Erdogan appears to belatedly realize the fallacy of his previous strategy and is visibly taking steps to change it. He and his country still have a long way to go in proving that they can be fully trusted and are entirely committed to changing the disastrous course that they’ve charted over the past six years, but the very fact that the highest-level Russian and Iranian political and diplomatic officials are willing to work with their Turkish counterparts in this regard is reason enough to give Ankara a chance.

That being said, there are still several primary hurdles that need to be overcome in order to end the suffering of the Syrian people. Bringing peace to Syria will be no easy task because of how complex the war has become in transforming from what the US anticipated would be a quick Color Revolution regime change into what is now a prolonged Hybrid War that’s drawn in the participation of the entire world’s Great Powers to one extent or another. The most important state-level forces supporting the proxy war against the democratically elected and legitimate government in Syria are the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, the UK, and France, and whether they consciously know it or not, they’re essentially promoting ‘Israel’s’ 21st-century manifestation of the 1982 Yinon Plan through their nefarious activities. On the other side of the barricades, so to speak, are Russia, Iran, and to a lesser, more discrete, and unseen degree, China. Up until Turkey’s Eurasian ‘defection’ from the unipolar bloc this summer after the failed pro-American coup attempt, the war appeared to have entered a standstill, but with Ankara’s trilateral cooperation with Moscow and Tehran, the Syrian Arab Army was able to successfully liberate Aleppo and dramatically turn the tide of the war. It now seems to only be a matter of time before Daesh is finally defeated, though this alone obviously won’t spell the end of Syria’s troubles.

All sides have repeatedly emphasized that the War on Syria will require a political solution, so this means that in one way or another, talks inevitably had to be held with the so-called “moderate rebel opposition” to this end. It should be remembered that, objectively speaking, there really isn’t such a thing as the “moderate rebel opposition”, but that it’s nowadays become the designation for the anti-government parties which have either laid down their arms or agreed to the present ceasefire in Syria. This has allowed the Tripartite to imperfectly separate the “moderate rebel opposition” from the terrorists and thus provide a starting point for the talks. However, it turns out to be, some sort of deal will have to eventually be agreed to between Damascus and the “moderate rebel opposition”, despite the Syrian Arab Army inarguably winning the military side of the war. This is because, as was noted, neither Russia nor Iran has the appetite for prolonging the conflict up to the point of seeing a military solution, each for their own respective reasons. Therefore, this will obviously be the most important subject of negotiations, though it must be said that President Assad has previously declared on many occasions that any political solution must respect the Syrian Constitution, and if a prospective proposal suggests something outside of established legal bounds, then it must be put to a constitutional referendum for the people to decide.

In line with this, the second and third most pressing political topics that will inevitably have to be broached deal with the PYD-YPG Kurds and their illegal unilateral declaration of a “federalized” (internally partitioned) state in the north of Syria. This virulently anti-government organization has yet to be invited to Astana and might very well never earn a seat at the conflict resolution table. This is because it is working towards the geopolitical ends that the US, Saudi Arabia, and ‘Israel’ want to achieve, which is the de-facto dissolution of the unitary Syrian Arab Republic and its replacement with a Bosnia-like dysfunctional “federation”. Turkey is absolutely opposed to the emergence of a Kurdish-led statelet in northern Syria which could naturally become a terrorist safe haven for the PKK and other anti-Ankara groups, and Iran is understandably sensitive to this as well since it’s presently faced with terrorist threats from the “Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran” (KDPI). The Syrian people and their government obviously don’t want to see their country internally partitioned either, so this is a factor of strategic convergence between these three sides, with Russia being the only diplomatically ambiguous actor in this regards. Moscow’s behavior in “guaranteeing” “federalization” talks between the Kurds and Damascus might be attributable to Russia’s historic relationship with the Kurds, and could also be a clever sleight of the diplomatic hand in offering them a symbolic consolation due to their exclusion from the Astana talks.

The elephant in the room, so to speak, is the long-term geostrategic intentions of Turkey, which officially dispatched troops to northern Syria at the end of last August. It thus far looks as though Ankara’s intentions are exactly as its leadership has publicly stated, which is to prevent the PYD-YPG Kurds from linking together their occupied territories and to also create a so-called “safe zone” for supplying the “moderate rebel opposition”. The biggest question, however, is over what Turkey will do to sustain and expand its strategic gains since they’d likely collapse the moment that its armed forces withdraw from Syria. Therefore, it’s very likely that Erdogan has a trick up his sleeve in wanting to replace the PYD-YPG Kurds with the Ankara-allied “Free Syrian Army” (FSA, which the author recognizes as being the “Fake Syrian Army”) in order to take over the illegal “Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria” and turn it into a pro-Turkish buffer region in northern Syria. On paper, this would satisfy Turkey’s aforementioned strategic objectives and not deal as imminent of a threat to Iran as a potential KDPI safe haven would, nor would it seem to bother Russia too much. However, that doesn’t mean that those two actors wouldn’t oppose this scheme in practice, as their loyal ally in Damascus would obviously be absolutely against this sort of “solution” to the war.

Keeping in mind that President Assad firmly said that all such anti-constitutional proposals like the speculated one would have to be approved by the Syrian people in a forthcoming referendum, it’s very likely that this plot will ultimately fail and that Turkey’s long-term geostrategic plans will be thwarted by the democratic will of the Arab Republic’s citizens. So long as Syria can continue to successfully ward off these sorts of political dangers, then it won’t unwittingly sacrifice its precious battlefield gains and can ideally move forward with advancing its envisioned strategy for restoring peace and sovereignty to the country.

Tasnim: It seems that the US is not satisfied with the ongoing nationwide ceasefire in Syria, which came into effect on December 30. Measures taken by Washington up to now indicate that it has been seeking to destabilize the Arab country by arming the terrorists there and provoking them to mount operations in the country. Washington is, in fact,orchestrating plots against the successful anti-terror cooperation among Tehran, Moscow, and Damascus. What is your take on that? Don’t you think that Washington’s support for Takfiri groups in Syria is the reason behind the exclusion of the US in the upcoming peace talks in Kazakhstan?

Korybko: I agree that Washington’s material and political assistance to the Syrian-based terrorists is the main reason why the Russian-Iranian-Turkish Tripartite was originally opposed to the US’ inclusion in the Astana talks, but Moscow’s position towards this has shifted over the past week. Ankara has always wanted Washington to play a role in this process, while Tehran has been opposed to it out of principle. Russia’s reversal in this regard is likely attributable to its leadership’s desire to improve relations with the US in order to advance a prospective New Détente in the New Cold War. As a means of promoting this grand strategic objective, Russia is willing to make symbolic ‘concessions’ to the US, and Moscow’s interest in seeing Washington represented at Astana should be interpreted through this understanding.

Regrettably, Russia’s overtures to the Trump Administration have rankled Iran, and it appears as though Moscow didn’t fully countenance Tehran’s reaction to its unilateral suggestion that Washington has a seat at the upcoming negotiations. It may be that Russian decision makers got carried away in prioritizing their anticipated reengagement with the US and that their sincere desire to see relations normalized between the two Great Powers blinded them to Iran’s sensitivities, but Moscow would do well to rethink its proposal to Washington and find a way to reach a suitable middle ground with Tehran. Obviously, the US will at some point or another have to return to the negotiating table in order for all sides to hash out a sustainable solution to the War on Syria, but it’s just that Iran was caught unaware by Russia’s sudden outreach to the US because it had assumed that Washington would be excluded from the talks at this point in time.

Iran’s future attitude towards the US’ inclusion in this framework will, of course, depend on Trump’s approach towards the nuclear deal and whether he abides by his campaign promises to radically renegotiate or outright scrap it. Tehran has already said that it won’t recognize the US’ possible attempts to go back on its word and violate international law, and tensions are again rising between the two decades-long rivals. Amidst this climate of competition, it’s understandable why Iran wouldn’t want the US to participate in the Astana talks as an equal partner, yet Russia has already publicly made several outreaches to Washington in probing its interest to participate. Clearly, then, a middle ground compromise must be reached which respects Iran’s dignity, Russia’s word, and the US’ eventual necessary participation in this framework. One workable possibility could be that the US simply dispatches non-participating observers in order to have the physical presence which Russia requested of it, yet not directly involve itself in a manner which would offend Iran.

If successful, then this model could be progressively rolled out to incorporate Saudi, Qatari, French, and British participation in the future in bolstering this parallel yet complementary conflict resolution mechanism in advance of a final settlement to the War on Syria. Although it may be repulsive for some people to imagine dignified Iranian representatives sitting at the same table as their Saudi and Qatari counterparts, the uncomfortable fact is that the participation of those two latter rivals is indispensable to reaching a sustainable outcome to this conflict. It doesn’t mean that the proposals put forth by Riyadh, Doha, and Washington necessarily have to be applied, but just that they still more likely than not need to have at least a symbolic ‘face-saving’ role in this process. If Astana can serve as the first step in bringing all sides together, even if only partially and imperfectly, then it could realistically pave the way for bringing an end to the War on Syria, though even then it’s going to still be a long and arduous political process fraught with the political challenges expanded upon in my first answer.

Tasnim: What is your comment about the stances of US President Donald Trump on the Syrian crisis and the future of US-Russia relations under his presidency?

Korybko: On the surface, it’s certainly encouraging that Trump is publicly opposed to carrying out regime changes, including dragging out the failed one that his predecessor initiated against President Assad, but what he says and what he ends up doing are two completely different things. It’s the responsibility of any astute analyst, strategist, and forecaster to consider all possible events, and it would be a dereliction of one’s professional duties to blindly assume that everything will be okay across the world now that Trump is the American President. The 45th President has been and always will be defined by his campaign slogans of putting “America First” in order to “Make America Great Again”, and nobody should be confused about what this means.

In practice, the US is at a critical juncture whereby its permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (collectively referred to as the “deep state”) are faced with a moment of reckoning in seriously considering a series of drastic changes to their long-standing strategies, ergo the potential foreign policy shift that certain analysts are expecting under Trump. However, this doesn’t signify that the US’ long-term intentions of retaining or rescuing its unipolar hegemony have dissipated – quite the contrary, they still now more than ever remain the driving force behind its actions, but it’s just that it wants to “more efficiently and effectively” promote these objectives, hence why it’s debating whether or not a long overdue rethink is necessary to its strategic and tactical calculi.

One of the most overt and globally visible manifestations of this would be a New Détente with Russia in the New Cold War, whereby an undeclared sphere of influence in Eurasia could be agreed upon between Presidents Putin and Trump. A lot can still happen to obstruct this vision, including opposition and sabotage from the US’ “deep state” actors, but if successfully carried out, then it could powerfully rearrange the ‘Eurasian chessboard’. A drawdown of American and NATO forces in Central and Eastern Europe could, in turn, allow the US to more closely concentrate on “containing” Iran and China, and the relief that this would give Russia could consequently make it the only neighboring “safety valve” for these two strategically beleaguered targets.

Trump has made no secret of his ill will towards the Mideast and East Asia’s leading Great Powers so it’s totally foreseeable that he will double down on the US’ efforts to obstruct their regional policies. It would be much more difficult to achieve this goal if the US also has to simultaneously deal with Russia, which is why Trump’s Administration is likely to follow the grand advice of the infamous Henry Kissinger in seeking to partake in a Great Power balancing act reminiscent of the 1970s. During that time, the former National Security Advisor instructed the US to reach out to China in the hopes that this could further divide the USSR from the People’s Republic, and in hindsight, it was very effective in turning Beijing into an American ally against Moscow. Nowadays, after having succeeded in this exact same ploy with India vis-à-vis Beijing, the US wants to apply it towards Russia in relation to China – and to a lesser extent, Iran as well – though it’s comparatively less likely that it will succeed.

The emerging Multipolar World Order in Afro-Eurasia is entirely dependent on the viability of China’s One Belt One Road vision of constructing New Silk Roads all across the globe, one of the most important of which is expected to traverse Russia in linking East Asia with Western Europe. The Eurasian Land Bridge, as it’s tentatively being called, is predicted to become the crucial corridor through which supercontinental commercial relations will be conducted, and it’s of the absolute highest priority to Russian decision makers that this ambitious game-changing global project is completed. They believe that it will propel Russia’s geostrategic position to untold heights, making it the chief arbitrator in Eurasian affairs, and consequently, a global power once more. Therefore, Moscow is highly unlikely to ever take any unfriendly moves which would work against Beijing’s interests. Rather, by entering into a New Détente with the US in the New Cold War, Russia believes that it can maneuver itself into becoming an even more important partner to China than ever before by being the only trust-worthy multipolar Great Power with pragmatic relations with the US.

It follows that Russia could assist China by informally mediating in its disputes with the US, thereby providing a creative diplomatic avenue for breaking through Washington’s hoped-for ‘containment bloc’ against Beijing. Furthermore, the same policy could also be applied to Iran, since it’s expected that the US is also primed to behave very aggressively towards the Islamic Republic. In both cases with China and Iran, their most reliable neighbor and the only trustworthy one with pragmatic ties with the US will be Russia, which therefore acquires a doubly strategic role in helping each of its fellow multipolar Eurasian Great Powers in dealing with the US. Being their geopolitical “safety valve”, Russia becomes unprecedentedly important to their grand strategies and can help their leaderships balance out the asymmetrical aggression that the US is poised to wage against them.

Conclusively, while it might superficially appear as though Russia is “selling out” by trying so hard to restore its relations with the US and strike a New Détente in the New Cold War, if responsibly practiced with an eye on grander long-term and collectively multipolar objectives (which is the key operative variable in this crucial case), then Moscow’s latest moves might be exactly what Eurasia needs in order to sustain its historic integrational gains and defend against America’s unipolar counteroffensive in the Trump Era.