On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that a nationwide ceasefire in Syria would begin at midnight on Thursday night. This is the third such agreement this year – all other negotiated ceasefires have failed – but this deal will be enforced by Russia, Turkey, and Iran, the largest international supporters of both regime and anti-regime forces in the country. The Cipher Brief asked Network Member Emile Nakhleh, a former member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service, to continue his analysis of Syria from last week in light of these developments. He told us that he was not optimistic about the ceasefire, because it is based on multiple incorrect assumptions about the future of Syria itself.
The Cipher Brief: What is the likelihood that the ceasefire holds?
Emile Nakhleh: I am not optimistic the new Russia-engineered ceasefire will hold because it is based on at least three wrong assumptions.
First, the ceasefire is not truly aimed at securing stability in Syria or helping the Syrian people improve their living conditions. Rather, it's designed to signal Russia's centrality and American marginalization in the region.
Second, the ceasefire is more about a new balance of power (between the U.S. and Russia) and an envisioned political architecture among the regional states (Iran and Turkey in the first order and Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt in the second order).
Third, the ceasefire aims at cementing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's hold on the country, not at paving the way for a post-Assad Syria. One cynically might say, the ceasefire is all about dividing Syria into spheres of influence among Turkey, Iran, and the Assad Alawite regime. Once the "opposition" elements that have signed on the ceasefire discover this three-part reality, they will bolt from the agreement and return to the battlefield. Assad will respond in kind—thus reigniting the cycle of vicious violence, for which he will blame the "terrorists."
TCB: How could the ceasefire impact the campaign against ISIS in Raqqa?
EN: The ceasefire will inadvertently slow down the campaign against ISIS in Raqqa for three reasons:
First, the key combatants fighting ISIS in Raqqa and elsewhere in Syria lack a common mission and an agreed upon end game.
Second, the U.S., which has been shut out of the ceasefire, remains crucial to fighting ISIS in Raqqa, which means that Putin, by necessity, will have to coordinate the Raqqa campaign with the United States. In this case, he will likely be forced to wait until the Trump administration takes office.
Finally, it's not clear that the "opposition" forces who signed the ceasefire will necessarily be committed to fighting the Sunni ISIS in Raqqa on behalf of the Alawite Assad regime or Shia Iran. Nor will Turkey be all that enthused about allowing the Kurdish forces to take on a prominent role in the fight against ISIS.
TCB: What happens next in Syria following this agreement?
EN: If the ceasefire collapses, then Syria will return to the same bloody mayhem it experienced before the ceasefire was announced. If the ceasefire holds, opposition forces and their Sunni regional supporters will quickly realize that Assad and his Russian benefactor are not interested in working toward a post-Assad regime. It would be naive to think that Assad will willingly negotiate his regime out of existence.
The fundamental intelligence question is whether Russia, Turkey, and Iran will sacrifice their resurgent regional power postures in favor of saving Assad. As rational actors, their answer should be obvious. Russia views the entire Eastern Mediterranean as its new playing field in which Assad's Syria is a mere sliver. Turkey's strategic aim of presenting itself as the resurgent Sunni state in the region, perhaps replacing Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and of controlling the Kurds transcends Assad and his trump Alawite regime. Finally, Iran's interest in preserving the nuclear deal with Washington under the Trump administration and its active desire to rejoin the world economy are certainly more important than holding onto a dictatorial regime that is a relic of the 20th century.
