Alwaght- The West is caught between a rock and a hard place as on the one hand it does not want to accept Russia and Iran initiative and on the other hand it cannot solve the crisis by itself. This is why the Western officials have started to take paradoxical and conflicting stances. While, the US, Britain and even Turkey have earlier taken back the long-held calls for President Bashar al-Assad to step down. France, though, has reiterated its standing, insisting the Syrian president must leave power.
Repeating “al-Assad must go” call, the French President François Hollande late on Monday has said that France’s standing on the political solution for the Syrian conflict has not changed, claiming that the political settlement for Syria’s crisis would come after the president al-Assad’s step-down. According to Le Figaro, François Hollande, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, in an interview, said that France has not changed its mind on the Syrian conflict, and it still holds the idea that any upcoming deal to end the Syrian crisis must be brokered without the country’s current President Bashar al-Assad, adding that to ensure a political transition they have to take all the needed measures, and the transition will be done only after President al-Assad ouster. He noted that in terms of French policy nothing has changed. The French president, answering another question, said that if they wanted a political solution, nothing should be thought of with President Bashar al-Assad remaining in power, adding that he, President Barack Obama and other leaders reject the Syrian president’s stay in power, and Russia should be aware of the consequences of supporting al-Assad. Hollande’s position on the Syrian president comes after officials of France’s close allies, including the US Secretary of State John Kerry, Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish Prime Minister, and the British officials had admitted that without President Bashar al-Assad no political solution for the Syrian crisis is in sight.
Moreover, talking to the Germany’s Deutschlandfunk Radio station, the Chairman of the Munich Security Conference Wolfgang Ischinger has highlighted on Thursday the Iranian role in arranging for a peaceful settlement in Syria, reiterating that Iran and Russia have played a significant role for ending the conflict in Syria.
According to some Western analysts, it is very likely that François Hollande’s stance on President al-Assad’s removal stems from the fact that setting aside the precondition of Bashar al-Assad's ouster would mean the onset of a series of failures for the West in the west Asia. In an analysis published on Foreign Policy website, the author of “National Insecurity: American Leadership in an Age of Fear” David Rothkopf pointed to the recent Russian and Iranian moves in Syria, saying “ the adversaries are seizing the initiative and setting in motion a potentially permanent redistribution of power and influence in a strategically important region of the world.” Even more, Rothkopf warned that if the US takes no serious measures to deter Russia and Iran, it would be made to leave the region permanently.
On the other hand, after five years since the eruption of conflict in Syria, the failure of the Western objectives and plans seems undeniable, an issue that the US officials have admitted. Hilary Clinton, the former US Secretary of State and the Democrats’ forerunning candidate for the US 2016 presidential election, has criticized the Barak Obama’s policies on Syria, saying that the US government’s plans to train the Syrian opposition fighters were totally a failure. However, she added, without proposing alternative plans, that as long as the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is in power defeating the ISIS’ takfiris would be very difficult. In addition, the Washington Post noted that the recent Russian, Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian moves, which followed the Russia’s military build-up in Syria, prove the US limitation to manage the development in the West Asian Region.
A middle way
It seems that the Americans have decided on taking a middle path and managing the crisis in Syria in line with the current conditions. The Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday that Washington and Moscow agreed on some fundamental principles. Taking to MSNBC, Kerry said that there was an agreement between Russia and the US that Syria should stay a unified country, and there must be an organized transitional process. But he admitted that the differences on the outcome of the transitional process have remained unsolved. After a 90-minue meeting between President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly the two sides still disagree on the al-Assad’s role in Syria’s future, the US media quoted an American official as saying. Meanwhile, the Russian envoy to the UN has told of the US setting obstructions ahead of passing a statement in the UNSC calling to end the conflicts in the West Asia. Vitaly Churkin announced that the US rejected a Russian-proposed draft resolution on ending the conflicts in the West Asian region, which was set to be debated by the foreign ministers on September 30.
Moscow is determined
With the West’s contradictory and confused approach on Russian military presence in Syria, Moscow still is resolved to increase its presence in battles against terrorism. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday that Russia has made clear its standing, it tends to or relies on nobody, but Moscow cannot allow Syria to fall, because the alternative would be the ISIS’ Islamic State. The Russian defense ministry official General Yuri Yakubov, in an interview with Interfax News, said that Moscow sees it a necessity to equip the Syrian army and the President Bashar al-Assad’s supporters in the country with advanced arms and equipment. Meanwhile, the Washington Post has quoted a US official, as saying that Moscow is ready to ship more weapons to Syria, including artillery and rocket launchers.
