Ex-Obama envoy skeptical of Syrian peace plan

A former U.S. ambassador to Syria is doubtful a new peace process approved by the United Nations Security Council and championed by the Obama administration will end the civil war there.

Robert Ford, who was ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014, argued that there hasn’t been enough involvement from the Syrian people themselves and that the Assad regime has little incentive to compromise right now.

“I don’t think the process is going to go anywhere,” Ford told a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. “There hasn’t been enough pressure on the Assad regime to accept major concessions.”

{mosads}In December, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution supporting a peace process laid out by the International Syria Support Group, which consists of negotiators from 17 countries, including the United States.

The plan calls for a ceasefire and a roughly two-year timeline to create a unity government and hold elections.

The administration has heralded the plan as a significant step forward in ending the deadly civil war.

“This council is sending a clear message to all concerned that the time is now to stop the killing in Syria and lay the groundwork for a government that the long-suffering people of that battered land can support,” Secretary of State John Kerry said at the Security Council meeting in December. “After four and a half years of war, this is the first time we have been able to come together at the United Nations in the Security Council to embrace a road forward.”

But Ford says there is no consensus on which rebel groups will negotiate with Syrian President Bashar Assad, and the Syrians aren’t having a say in that.

“Right now, there’s a lot of goofing around going on about who should represent the Syrian opposition,” he said. “The Russians are trying to put their friends on the opposition delegation. The Iranians are trying to put some of their friends. And frankly, the Turks and the Saudis are trying to put some of their friends.

“Syrians are not in control of this. That to me spells disaster, especially if the really serious, armed opposition guys who accept a political solution, if those serious, armed opposition guys are excluded from the negotiation, I can’t imagine they’ll sustain their support for a political deal.”

Rebel groups also need to have greater successes against the Assad regime, Ford said, to force concessions. That will require more support from the United States, he added.

“It’s not that the opposition’s going to win a military victory,” he said. “That would take forever and destroy whatever is left of Syria, not that there’s much left. But the point is to inflict enough pain on the Assad government and its supporters that they will negotiate seriously at the table.”

Michael Vickers, former under secretary of Defense for intelligence, echoed the need for more support for opposition groups at the hearing.

“It’s not too late to decisively support the opposition,” he told the committee. “We did not develop a war-winning strategy, for example, until the sixth year of our covert war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan or in President Reagan’s second term.”