Biden Advised to Hold Negotiations with Preconditions with Assad

Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) talk with members of US forces in Darbasiya, Syria. (Reuters)
Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) talk with members of US forces in Darbasiya, Syria. (Reuters)
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Biden Advised to Hold Negotiations with Preconditions with Assad

Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) talk with members of US forces in Darbasiya, Syria. (Reuters)
Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) talk with members of US forces in Darbasiya, Syria. (Reuters)

Before US President Joe Biden could complete his “Syria team”, Washington was bombarded by demands during its transitional period to opt for a new approach to tackle the war-torn country. Among them is a phased approach with Damascus based on negotiations with president Bashar Assad.

Kurdish romance
So far, among the appointments to the team is Brett McGurk, who has been selected as coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa at the National Security Council. McGurk was previously described by Ankara as the new Lawrence of Arabia due to his sympathy with the Kurds in their plight against Turkey. In fact, one of the main reasons that prompted his resignation from the previous administration was Donald Trump’s “abandonment” of the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces – Washington’s key ally in the fight against ISIS – when he declared that he was pulling out American troops from Syria.

McGurk will be joined by Zahra Bell, who was in charge of facilitating inter-Kurdish Syrian dialogue to boost stability in the region, which boasts some 500 American soldiers, who in turn support 100,000 SDF fighters. The SDF controls a fourth of Syria’s territory and about 80 percent of its resources, making it a valuable asset for Washington in negotiations with Moscow, Tehran, Damascus and Ankara.

Questions remain over who will be named US special representative for Syria to succeed James Jeffery and Joel Rayburn. Questions have also been raised as to whether the Syria file will be handled by the National Security Council or whether the Secretary of State will adopt a more hands-on approach, like the one taken by Mike Pompeo and his team. Pompeo advocated the “maximum pressure” economic, political and military policy against Damascus and pushed for its continued political Arab and western isolation.

On the margin
There appears to be consensus that the Syrian conflict will not be high on Biden’s list of priorities. The new administration appears to be focused on the strained ties with Russia and efforts to return to the Iran nuclear deal.

Even though Syria will likely to remain on the margin, numerous articles, researches and studies have been published, suggesting a new American approach to the conflict. Former US Ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford was among the first to declare that the US policy in Syria had “failed” in achieving it declared goals. Writing to Foreign Policy, he said that it has only succeeded in the fight against ISIS. He suggested that Washington cooperate with Russia and Turkey in Syria even though those two countries often go it alone in tackling several issues in the conflict.

Meanwhile, Lebanese, Syrian and western figures appealed to Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron to lift sanctions against Damascus. In a letter to the two leaders, they urged them to adopt a new approach.

Former US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, meanwhile, sprung a surprise by calling for a new American approach in Syria. The official is known for being one of Assad’s fiercest critics, so his article, with Hrair Balian, in Responsible Statescraft raised a few eyebrows when he noted that the Biden administration “has an opportunity to re-evaluate US policy on Syria, prioritizing diplomacy to advance our interests.”

“One of us (Feltman) has been known for years as a strong critic of Syrian president Bashar Assad and Syria’s domestic and external policies. The other (Balian) has been a strong critic of the notion that pressure alone will change what we consider to be problematic behavior,” they added.

Two options
“Our policy differences, especially regarding Assad remain strong, making our joint recommendation that much more significant. Indeed, we agree that, with the exception of confronting the ISIS threat in northeast Syria, US policy since 2011 has failed to produce positive results – and that a pivot is necessary,” they said.

“US interests in Syria include eliminating the threat posed by terrorist groups, preventing the use and proliferation of chemical weapons, and alleviating the suffering of millions of civilians whose lives have been shattered by the combination of war, repression, corruption and sanctions,” they added.

“Current US policy — centered on isolating and sanctioning Syria — has succeeded in crippling the country’s already war-ravaged economy, but it has failed to produce behavioral change … Instead, these policies contributed to Syria’s deepening reliance on Russia and Iran,” they remarked.

“The United States is now confronted with a choice between the current approach, which has succeeded only in contributing to a festering failed state, or a reconceived diplomatic process that aims to develop a detailed framework for engaging the Syrian government on a limited set of concrete and verifiable steps, which, if implemented, will be matched by targeted assistance and sanctions adjustments from the United States and EU,” they stressed.

The Carter Center provided a framework for a phased approach to the conflict. It is based on interviews with US, European, Russian and UN officials, analysts at think tanks and universities, and Syrians from across the country’s multiple political divides. It suggested that Washington exempt efforts to combat COVID-19 in Syria from its sanctions. It also proposed facilitating the rebuilding of civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools, and the gradual easing of American and European sanctions on condition that these steps should not be taken before Damascus makes tangible steps from its end.

Damascus is required to release detained political detainees, ensure the safe and dignified return of refugees to their homes, protect civilians and ensure the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to all regions. It must eliminate all of its chemical weapons arsenal in line with the 2013 agreement, carry out political and security reforms, including demonstrate goodwill at the Geneva talks, and adopt decentralized governance.

No gift to Damascus
Supporters of this approach believe that the majority of countries have years ago abandoned their demand for Assad to step down. And yet, these countries have continued to adopt their policy of pressure and isolation that has failed to achieve any reform.

“The escalating economic crisis, coupled with rising concern over the current trajectory in Syria, may present an opportunity to test an alternative, more pragmatic approach. This would defer resolution of the most contentious issues while focusing instead on a more limited set of reforms in return for reconstruction assistance and sanctions relief. The aim would be to stabilize the current situation in Syria and build some forward momentum for a larger diplomatic process to end the warm” said the report.

“For US and European policymakers, the Syrian government’s human rights record and its close alignment with geopolitical adversaries Russia and Iran make engagement politically hazardous, especially without evidence that it would lead to meaningful concessions. By comparison, continuing to isolate Syria is commonly perceived as a low-cost, low-risk strategy that avoids rewarding the government for crimes committed over the course of the war,” it added.

“The current diplomatic approach is leading nowhere, or worse. While conditions may not yet be in place for productive negotiations, the August 2020 visit by two senior US officials to Damascus to obtain the release of US citizens held in Syria has at least opened the door to explore new avenues for dialogue, possibly on broader issues,” it noted.

Critics of the new approach say that it lacks geopolitical depth, especially in regards to the Iranian and Turkish presence in Syria.



Biden’s White House Invitation to Trump Continues a Tradition Trump Shunned in 2020

Former President Donald Trump, right, and Melania Trump disembark from their final flight on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla., Jan. 20, 2021. (AP)
Former President Donald Trump, right, and Melania Trump disembark from their final flight on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla., Jan. 20, 2021. (AP)
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Biden’s White House Invitation to Trump Continues a Tradition Trump Shunned in 2020

Former President Donald Trump, right, and Melania Trump disembark from their final flight on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla., Jan. 20, 2021. (AP)
Former President Donald Trump, right, and Melania Trump disembark from their final flight on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla., Jan. 20, 2021. (AP)

Before he comes back for good on Inauguration Day, Donald Trump will return to the White House briefly at the invitation of Democratic President Joe Biden, who had hoped to defeat his Republican predecessor a second time and reside there for four more years.

That may make for an awkward encounter, especially given that, after Biden ousted Trump in 2020, Trump offered no such White House invitation to Biden. Trump even left Washington before the Jan. 20, 2021, inauguration, becoming the first president to do so since Andrew Johnson skipped the 1869 swearing-in of Ulysses S. Grant.

Biden also has the unusual distinction of having beaten Trump in one cycle and run against him for about 15 months during this year’s campaign. As he sought reelection, Biden constantly decried Trump as a threat to democracy and the nation’s core values before leaving the race in July and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, who took on her own campaign and lost on Election Day.

When the two meet in the Oval Office on Wednesday, it’ll technically be the first time since 1992 that an outgoing president sits down with an incoming one he competed against in a campaign. Back then, Republican President George H.W. Bush met with Democrat and President-elect Bill Clinton about two weeks after they squared off on Election Day.

Bush and Clinton talked policy before going together to the Roosevelt Room to meet with their transition staff. Clinton later called the meeting "terrific" and said Bush was "very helpful."

Over the decades, such handoff meetings between outgoing presidents and their replacements have been by turns friendly, tense and somewhere in between.

This time, Biden has vowed to ensure a smooth transition and emphasized the importance of working with Trump, who is both his presidential predecessor and successor, to bring the country together. Biden’s White House invitation to Trump includes his wife, the former and now incoming first lady, Melania Trump.

"I assured him that I’d direct my entire administration to work with his team," Biden said of the call with Trump when he made the invitation. The president-elect "looks forward to the meeting," spokesman Steven Cheung said.

Jim Bendat, a historian and author of "Democracy’s Big Day: The Inauguration of Our President," called face-to-face chats between outgoing and incoming presidents "healthy for democracy."

"I’m pleased to see that the Democrats have chosen to take the high road and returned to the traditions that really do make America great," Bendat said.

President George H.W. Bush gestures toward President-elect Bill Clinton at the White House, Nov. 18, 1992, in Washington. (AP)

Trump has done this before

This year's meeting won't be uncharted territory for Trump.

He and then-Democratic President Barack Obama held a longer-than-scheduled 90-minute Oval Office discussion days after the 2016 election. White House chief of staff Denis McDonough also showed Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner around the West Wing.

"We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed. Because, if you succeed, then the country succeeds," Obama told Trump, despite the president-elect being fresh off a victory that dented the outgoing president’s legacy.

Trump appeared nervous and was unusually subdued, calling Obama "a good man" and the meeting "a great honor." He said he had "great respect" for Obama and that they "discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful and some difficulties."

"I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel," Trump said. Obama White House press secretary Josh Earnest described the meeting as "at least a little less awkward than some might have expected," and he noted that the two "did not relitigate their differences in the Oval Office."

In fact, that encounter went smoothly enough to reassure a few Trump critics that he might grow into the job and become more presidential in temperament and action — an assessment quickly subsumed by Trump’s unique relish of bombast and political conflict once his administration began, particularly when it came to his predecessor.

Only about four months later, Trump accused Obama – without evidence – of having his "wires tapped" in Trump Tower before the 2016 election. On social media, he blasted the former president for engaging in "McCarthyism" and decrying it as "Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"

Obama aides now say that while the 2016 Trump-Obama meeting went well publicly, the incoming president's team ignored most of the transition process and did not have the same reverence for the White House and federal institutions that they or Republican President George W. Bush’s team had.

One recalled that the only question Trump counterparts asked at the time was not about the coming workload or responsibilities, but how best to find an apartment in Washington.

President-elect Obama and President Bush stand together on the West Wing Colonnade of the White House in Washington, Monday, Nov. 10, 2008. (AP)

A tradition, but not a requirement

The official transition process does not mandate that presidents invite their successors to face-to-face meetings, though it can feel that way.

"The psychological transfer occurs then," former Vice President Walter Mondale once said.

There's no record of George Washington scheduling a formal meeting with the nation's second president, John Adams, before leaving the then-capital city of New York. And Adams, after moving into the White House during his term, never invited his political rival and successor, Thomas Jefferson, over before leaving without attending Jefferson's inauguration in 1801.

Still, by 1841, President Martin Van Buren hosted President-elect William Henry Harrison — who had soundly beaten him on Election Day — for dinner at the White House. He even later offered to leave the official residence early to make room for his successor after Washington's National Hotel, where Harrison had been staying, became overcrowded. Harrison instead made a brief, preinaugural trip to Virginia.

More recently, Republican George W. Bush welcomed Obama to the White House in 2008 after calling the election of the nation's first Black president a "triumph of the American story."

And eight years prior, Bush himself was the newcomer when he met with the outgoing Clinton, who had denied his father a second term. Their chat came just eight days after the Supreme Court resolved the disputed 2000 election, and Bush also later headed to the vice presidential residence to briefly talk with the man he defeated, Al Gore.

Bush and Gore didn't say what they discussed, though vice presidential press aide Jim Kennedy described the conversation as meant to "demonstrate that this is a country where we put aside our differences after a long and difficult campaign."

Trump and Harris spoke by phone this past week but don't have a face-to-face meeting planned.