[Peace-discuss] Paul Pillar: if Syrian rebels balk at US-led peace talks, they shouldn't get US assistance

[Robert Naiman]

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/balky-syrian-rebels-8509

May 23, 2013

By Paul R. Pillar

Reasonable people can disagree on what to do about Syria, a problem with no
good solutions, and particularly about what to do regarding aid to Syrian
rebels. There ought not to be disagreement, however, on not letting the
United States, a would-be benefactor, get pushed around or have its
diplomacy subverted by the rebels, who are the supplicants.

Yet that becomes a possibility when we hear the head of the rebel Syrian
National Coalition<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/05/22/syria-kerry-assad-peace-talks/2351799/>throw
cold water on the peace conference that Secretary of State John Kerry and
his Russian counterpart agreed to arrange and say that his group will
withhold agreement to attend until it sees who from the Assad regime might
be coming.

In a public statement at this week’s “Friends of Syria” meeting, Kerry
linked<http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-to-assad-talk-peace-in-syria-or-we-help-rebels-20130523-2k1yq.html>the
concept of increased aid to the rebels to any unwillingness by the
Assad regime to participate in peace talks. One hopes he has conveyed a
converse message in private to rebel representatives.

There would be nothing wrong with also making such a message public. It
would be part of a consistent policy whereby U.S. decisions about aid to
rebels would be governed by the willingness or unwillingness of *each* side
to negotiate and to negotiate seriously.

Amid all the talk about Assad having to go, there is no reason from the
standpoint of U.S. interests to consider his departure an end in itself. It
is at most a means to achieve other ends, having to do with instability or
extremism in Syria.

An even more fundamental distinction is between objectives, either ultimate
or intermediate, and diplomatic modalities such as who exactly will be
sitting at a negotiating table. In general, regardless of the objectives,
including parties is better than excluding them, which only makes them more
likely to be spoilers. This principle goes for outsiders, including Iran.

As for the insiders and specifically the Assad regime, it would be hard to
label as peace talks any process in which that regime was not fully at the
table in the form of representatives of its own choice. Moreover, think of
the incentives — to talk or to fight, to cooperate or to spoil — of the
regime’s supporters.

A wide range of possibilities for a new Syria would share the common
feature of not having Bashar Assad in charge. But those possibilities can
be very different from each other in terms of the ability of those
currently supporting the regime to live useful lives in the new Syria, or
to live at all.

If they do not believe their interests will be fairly represented in
creation of a new order, they are more likely to see the only course as a
fight to the death. Anyone who does not acknowledge that reality does not
deserve assistance.
-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
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