White House fearful of militants, sees partner in Syrian president

As 2013 was a particularly catastrophic year for US policy in Syria, 2014 may be the year when the White House drops all demands for Syrian President’s departure from office and starts the process of re-engaging Bashar al-Assad, a US-based think tank said. Tony Badran in an article for "Foundation for Defense of Democracies" wrote that "the first order of business in the New Year is the international peace conference for Syria in Switzerland, scheduled for later this month. It’s also the only order of business, as far as the Obama administration is concerned. And once it’s convened, the expectation is that it will drag on for months". He added that as we are reaching to the threshold of peace talks, it seems that Washington officials are changing their attitude toward departure of Bashar al-Assad, because they well khonw that victory of the rebels in Syrian civil war would not be in favor of their interests. Some opposition sources have even claimed that Washington and Moscow were in agreement that Alawites would retain their dominant role in the army and security apparatuses, Badran said. Reminding the evolution and development of US strategy towards Syria, he said, “If the US starting position is to keep the regime, it will soon become apparent that this is impossible without Assad.” He said that the White House is constantly lowering its expectations about Syria and in near future it woulden't be a surprise to hear that US politicians want to engage with Assad government. “Moreover, Obama has purposely narrowed the US interests in Syria to a matter of arms control. This will facilitate making the turn and dropping all demands for Assad’s departure.” As one senior administration official said, once Syria’s chemical weapons have been fully removed, “the pressure on Assad to leave will be diminished.” The chemical weapons deal, other officials said, gave Assad “considerable staying power”. Previously former CIA Analyst Flynt Leverett also said that as the 2013 was the year of debacle for the US foreign policy in the Middle-East, specially in Syria, and it seems that the coming year is the period for Iranian diplomacy to blossom. Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, a political analyst, in an article on “Going to Tehran” web site wrote that US President Barrack Obama's inability to materialize his red line on Syria has greatly hurt the credibility of the country, and because of the US failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington is no more able to effectively threaten other countries. “If 2013 was a year in which the profound deficiencies of America’s Middle East strategy were on extended display, we expect that 2014 will be a year in which the effectiveness of Iranian strategy comes to the fore,” they said.