Strikes and continuous violence have strained the fresh Aleppo cease-fire the United States and Russia brokered this week, leaving experts doubtful any cessation of hostilities will hold.
The U.S. on Wednesday announced the “regime of calm” had been extended to the city of Aleppo and its surrounding districts, where a surge in fierce violence over the past two weeks has killed some 300 people. Although the U.S. had hoped it would be “open-ended,” in the words of State Department spokesman Mark Toner on Thursday, Bashar al-Assad’s regime said the truce in Aleppo would last just 48 hours.
While shelling and the level of violence has decreased following the agreement, the ceasefire has been pierced by several brutal attacks. Airstrikes on a camp for internally displaced people in Idlib province on Thursday left at least 28 dead, and 73 people were reportedly killed overnight as Islamist rebels seized a village near Aleppo.
While Toner said the U.S. is working towards getting in place “a nationwide cessation of hostilities that we believe can endure and be strengthened over the long haul,” experts remain doubtful of any chances of success. The Aleppo truce appears to be just a brief and ineffective lull in fighting before more violence commences.
Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014 and a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said Aleppo remains of key importance — it “holds center attention of the Syrian government, the opposition and the world.”
“If the Syrian government retakes the western part of the city it will be a major political victory just as peace talks are to restart,” Ford said. “In addition, by holding Aleppo the Syrian government would be better positioned to advance and block vital arms transit routes coming down to the Syrian opposition from Turkey.”
According to reports on Thursday, Assad sent a telegram to Russian President Vladimir Putin saying he would seek “final victory” in Aleppo and across the country. The Assad regime’s strategy in the city is “to surround it and squeeze it in order to secure ‘essential Syria,’” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Andrew Tabler noted.
Ford said he “strongly” doubts the renewed cessation of hostilities will hold for two reasons: One, the Assad regime wants to retake the western part of Aleppo and, two, on the opposition side, the Nusra Front “is determined to assert its relevance by launching attacks and pulling other Syrian opposition groups along with it.”
The ceasefire brokered in February “was never really in effect to begin with,” according to Hudson Institute’s Michael Pregent.
“There was no urgency by this administration to address the ceasefire violations by the Russians and Syrians,” Pregent, a visiting fellow at the National Defense University and a retired U.S. Army intelligence officer, said.
The agreed cessation of hostilities in Syria took effect on February 27, but heavy fighting and frequent airstrikes continued.
Meanwhile, Assad and the Russians have been busy building and promoting their narrative that for Syrians, the choice is either “Assad or ISIS,” Pregent said. That’s been seen not only in the airstrikes and bombardments from the Russian forces supporting Assad’s regime, but also in moments such as Thursday’s showpiece of a concert by a Russian conductor in the ruins of Palmyra.
“Assad is better positioned now than he has ever been in this whole conflict,” Pregent said. “He’s able to make the argument, ‘Listen, we’re fighting terrorists’ and be able to cite examples like taking back Palmyra.”
The White House has not been able to counter the narrative that it is a choice between Assad or Islamist extremist groups to the Sunni population, Pregent said, despite the regime’s bombing and starvation of civilian centers. Instead, the Obama administration’s broad strategy in Syria is “an unserious effort.”
For instance, as Russia has established de facto no-fly zones, the U.S. has foregone opportunities to “mirror” those capabilities by enforcing its own safe zones or no-fly zones, according to Pregent.
“This is a political act not to do it,” Pregent said. “It’s not difficult to put these things in place.”
It’s an idea the U.S. is not considering, Toner reiterated at Thursday’s press briefing.
“We don't want to set up specific no fly-zones. What we're working towards and what we're trying to get in place here is a nationwide cessation of hostilities that we believe can endure and be strengthened over the long haul,” Toner said. “That's been our aim here. It continues to be our focus, versus a no-fly zone, which we have talked about before, the reasons logistically why we feel that that's a non-starter.”
Overall, efforts to broker this extension of a “regime of calm” to Aleppo have been flawed, Ford said. The Russians have not stopped the Syrian government from bombing and ground attacks, even though many of the targets are off-limits under the terms of the February 27 cessation of hostilities.
“Worse, there is no penalty against the Syrian government for its actions,” he said. “Similarly, the armed opposition's attacks on, for example, May 5, likely will not result in any rebuke or slow-down in resupply from the armed opposition's regional friends.”
The proposed U.S.-Russia joint monitoring mechanism, working out of the same offices in Geneva to analyze the situation on the ground, is an interesting concept that has worked in the past, although under different conditions, Ford said.
“The American-Russian idea of a combined intel center is interesting. There was such a thing connected with Bosnia 20 years ago, but in Bosnia there was also an international armed force to strike those who violated the Bosnian ceasefire,” he said. “There is no such force in Syria.”
But the biggest issue is that the United States has not won over the confidence of the Sunni population in Syria, according to Pregent. Although it is the largest religious group in Syria, Pregent said “there’s been no real engagement with the Sunni population, other than kinetic engagement,” by the United States.
“We’re not building a Sunni force to retake areas — it’s hard to get Syrians to do something very difficult when you haven’t shown the commitment to help them do it.”
Meanwhile, for Ford, it is crucial for the Americans and the Russians to agree on how to enforce the cessation of hostilities and how to expand enforcement to include allowing humanitarian aid.
“If there is continued fighting and continued Syrian government blockage of aid convoys, the peace talks will go nowhere,” Ford said.
Mackenzie Weinger is a National Security Reporter at The Cipher Brief.
