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‘Joint Syrian Military Council’ Proposed to Russia as it Commits to Assad

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Syrian president Bashar Assad (L-R front) shake hands during a meeting, Damascus, March 23, 2020. (TASS via Getty Images)
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Syrian president Bashar Assad (L-R front) shake hands during a meeting, Damascus, March 23, 2020. (TASS via Getty Images)
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‘Joint Syrian Military Council’ Proposed to Russia as it Commits to Assad

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Syrian president Bashar Assad (L-R front) shake hands during a meeting, Damascus, March 23, 2020. (TASS via Getty Images)
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Syrian president Bashar Assad (L-R front) shake hands during a meeting, Damascus, March 23, 2020. (TASS via Getty Images)

Russia is not pleased with the pace set by Damascus at the Constitutional Committee talks in Geneva. It is also awaiting the development of US President Joe Biden’s policy towards Syria and Washington’s broader relations with Moscow.

Meanwhile, Russia received proposals from Syrian opposition figures for the formation of a joint military council that includes armed factions and defectors from the regime. The council would assume many duties, such as forcing the pull out of foreign forces and militias from Syria, unifying the country and its forces, and sponsoring the political solution. Russia would alone retain troops in the country.

As it stands, Russia is still maintaining its position that is based, first on prioritizing the upcoming presidential elections, set for mid-2021. It is hoping that Bashar Assad would win the elections, which would serve as a “turning point” to breaking Damascus’ international and regional isolation.

Second, Russia is keen on backing the constitutional reform path forged in Geneva and supporting the three “guarantors” - Moscow, Ankara and Tehran - at the upcoming Sochi talks. The talks would set the “mechanisms” for Constitutional Committee work to end the “negative” pace that was set by Damascus.

Third, Russia is relying on field settlements and understandings between warring parties, regime loyalists and their foreign sponsors in Sweida and Daraa in the south, al-Hasakeh, Qamishli and Aleppo in the north and northeast and Idlib in the northwest.

Given this vision, presidential envoy Alexander Lavrentiev said that Russia has “other calculations”, which he revealed during his recent secret visit to Damascus. Accompanied by senior generals, he met with Assad before heading to Geneva in late January.

In the meantime, Russia was approached with a proposal from Russian civil and military figures urging it to consider forming a joint military council. The suggestion was sent through various channels to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, his deputy Mikael Bogdanov and Alexander Zorin, a Russian defense ministry official in charge of the Syrian file.

Military council
The first proposal was submitted by opposition figures from the Moscow and Cairo “platforms” and focuses on the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 2254. It suggests the formation of a joint military council during a transitional phase, whose duration would be agreed on.

Asharq Al-Awsat received a copy of the proposal, which explains that the council would be formed of three parties. The first are retired senior officers who served under late president Hafez Assad. The second are officers who are still in service and the third are officers who have defected from the regime but who did not become involved in armed factions.

Implementation of resolution 2254, continued the document, would take place in ten steps, including restructuring the military and enabling it to eliminate terrorism, dismantling all armed groups, collecting all weapons, restoring the authority of the state throughout Syria, naming an interim government that boasts full executive authorities as stipulated in the 2012 constitution, and calling for an internal national dialogue.

The dialogue would produce a founding association that would be tasked with drafting a new constitution, said the document. The proposal also calls for the release of detainees, allowing the return of refugees to their homes and holding international contacts over reconstruction.

It also demands the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Syria. Russia alone would keep its troops, who would work with the military council and interim government to restore stability, ensure the implementation of resolution 2254, form a reconciliation body and safeguard the constitutional referendum process and parliamentary and presidential elections.

The “legal reference” for the above would either be the 2012 constitution or a temporary constitutional declaration derived from the 2015 Vienna understandings.

Media test
Meanwhile, opposition journalist Yaser Badawi called for the formation of a military council through an agreement between the “influential” players in Syria, starting with Russia.

In an article published by Russia’s Nezavisimaya Gazeta, he said the council should include current serving officers and defected ones, who have not taken part in hostilities. The council would be responsible for eliminating terrorism, protecting Syria and its people and collecting all weapons.

Opposition figures interpreted Russia’s publication of his article as a sign that it was officially prepared to discuss this idea, despite alleged protests by Syria’s ambassador to Moscow.

Badawi cited statements from Arab tribes, rights activists and politicians, demanding the formation of a military council headed by General Manaf Tlass, son of late Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass.

In contrast to the other proposal on a joint military council, Badawi said his proposed council would stop the upcoming “fraudulent” presidential elections.

Both suggestions agree that Russia can play a “decisive” role in forming the military council, restructuring the military and supplying it with means to fight terrorism, and restore calm in the country.

Opposition figures revealed that some 1,100 defected officers, including some residing in Turkey and with ties in northern Syria, have expressed their support for Badawi’s proposal.

Commander of the 100,000-strong Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Mazloum Abdi had told Asharq Al-Awsat last week that he does not oppose joining a military council that does not take on a nationalist, religious or sectarian identity.

He stressed that the council should “believe in defending the nation and not be subject to foreign agendas.”

Common ground
Opposition, government and foreign circles, including Russia, are in agreement on the need to “preserve state institutions”. Differences have emerged over the extent of “reforms” and the “restructuring” of the military and security agencies.

Moscow had previously tested the idea of forming a military council comprised of 40 officers. It had informed the opposition that this proposal still stands.

Meanwhile, a western official said the Russian military is “historically enamored” with the idea of military rule and testing the idea of a military council in an allied country, even if the circumstances in Syria have changed a lot in recent years.

Evidence of Russia’s military leanings are its support for the formation of the fifth armored division in southern Syria. Its Hmeimin military base also coordinates its operations with the Syrian army and patrols with the SDF in regions east of the Euphrates River.

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As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
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As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)

Israel says it is determined to destroy Iran’s nuclear program because its archenemy's furtive efforts to build an atomic weapon are a threat to its existence.

What’s not-so-secret is that for decades Israel has been believed to be the Middle East’s only nation with nuclear weapons, even though its leaders have refused to confirm or deny their existence, The Associated Press said.

Israel's ambiguity has enabled it to bolster its deterrence against Iran and other enemies, experts say, without triggering a regional nuclear arms race or inviting preemptive attacks.

Israel is one of just five countries that aren’t party to a global nuclear nonproliferation treaty. That relieves it of international pressure to disarm, or even to allow inspectors to scrutinize its facilities.

Critics in Iran and elsewhere have accused Western countries of hypocrisy for keeping strict tabs on Iran's nuclear program — which its leaders insist is only for peaceful purposes — while effectively giving Israel's suspected arsenal a free pass.

On Sunday, the US military struck three nuclear sites in Iran, inserting itself into Israel’s effort to destroy Iran’s program.

Here's a closer look at Israel's nuclear program:

A history of nuclear ambiguity Israel opened its Negev Nuclear Research Center in the remote desert city of Dimona in 1958, under the country's first leader, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. He believed the tiny fledgling country surrounded by hostile neighbors needed nuclear deterrence as an extra measure of security. Some historians say they were meant to be used only in case of emergency, as a last resort.

After it opened, Israel kept the work at Dimona hidden for a decade, telling United States’ officials it was a textile factory, according to a 2022 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an academic journal.

Relying on plutonium produced at Dimona, Israel has had the ability to fire nuclear warheads since the early 1970s, according to that article, co-authored by Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, and Matt Korda, a researcher at the same organization.

Israel's policy of ambiguity suffered a major setback in 1986, when Dimona’s activities were exposed by a former technician at the site, Mordechai Vanunu. He provided photographs and descriptions of the reactor to The Sunday Times of London.

Vanunu served 18 years in prison for treason, and is not allowed to meet with foreigners or leave the country.

ISRAEL POSSESSES DOZENS OF NUCLEAR WARHEADS, EXPERTS SAY

Experts estimate Israel has between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads, although they say the lower end of that range is more likely.

Israel also has stockpiled as much as 1,110 kilograms (2,425 pounds) of plutonium, potentially enough to make 277 nuclear weapons, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a global security organization. It has six submarines believed to be capable of launching nuclear cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles believed to be capable of launching a nuclear warhead up to 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles), the organization says.

Germany has supplied all of the submarines to Israel, which are docked in the northern city of Haifa, according to the article by Kristensen and Korda.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST POSE RISKS

In the Middle East, where conflicts abound, governments are often unstable, and regional alliances are often shifting, nuclear proliferation is particularly dangerous, said Or Rabinowitz, a scholar at Jerusalem's Hebrew University and a visiting associate professor at Stanford University.

“When nuclear armed states are at war, the world always takes notice because we don’t like it when nuclear arsenals ... are available for decision makers,” she said.

Rabinowitz says Israel's military leaders could consider deploying a nuclear weapon if they found themselves facing an extreme threat, such as a weapon of mass destruction being used against them.

Three countries other than Israel have refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: India, Pakistan and South Sudan. North Korea has withdrawn. Iran has signed the treaty, but it was censured last week, shortly before Israel launched its operation, by the UN's nuclear watchdog — a day before Israel attacked — for violating its obligations.

Israel's policy of ambiguity has helped it evade greater scrutiny, said Susie Snyder at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a group that works to promote adherence to the UN treaty.

Its policy has also shined a light on the failure of Western countries to rein in nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, she said.

They “prefer not to be reminded of their own complicity,” she said.