Syria not really a priority for Biden but could find more humanitarian help

When he was vice president less than Barack Obama, US President Joe Biden advocated a stricter US insurance policy in Syria, disagreeing with the former president when he backed from enforcing a crimson line on chemical weapons in 2013 and advising caution in arming rebel elements in the country.

But mainly because the Syrian conflict enters its eleventh season, there are no symptoms that Syria will end up being anywhere near the top of Mr Biden's Middle East agenda, or that he'll become involved militarily beyond retaliatory and counterterrorism strikes found in the country.

For the Biden administration, Syria - unlike Yemen and Iran - has not received a special envoy, a tradition kept by the previous two administrations. Instead, the Biden crew has kept Aimee Cutrona as acting unique representative for Syria engagement and possesses for the most part run the file from the White House and desk officers at the STATE DEPT. and the Pentagon.

Charles Lister, senior fellow and director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism and Extremism programmes in the center East Institute, describes the initial 8 weeks of the Biden insurance plan on Syria as continuation from Donald Trump's administration.

“What we have so far from the Biden administration over Syria policy is a fantastic package of continuity and incredibly little change - but to come to be frank, that’s also because we’ve seen very little in the way of actual policy actions,” Mr Lister told The National.

The continuity so far has been keeping existing sanctions, carrying out counter-ISIS functions and, in a Trump-like maneuver, approving an air strike on February 26 against an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia inside Syria following an attack on a US base in Iraq.

But while the STATE DEPT. exercised very much gravitas in the Syria data file during the Trump administration, Mr Lister views that vitality shifting to the White House under Mr Biden.

At the White House, Brett McGurk, the former US envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, is currently the White House co-ordinator for the center East and North Africa. Zehra Bell, circumstances Department job diplomat who done the Syria Changeover Assistance Response Team, can be director for Iraq and Syria.

“A soft overview of Syria policy is still under way in the White House and that’s largely stifled the State Department’s capability to exert itself beyond the bounds of normal activity,” Mr Lister, who has tracked and studied the Syrian conflict since 2011.

Mr Lister isn't anticipating a good political appointee will fill up the Syria envoy’s seat at the STATE DEPT.. “Concerns over the result of prioritising Iran policy over Syria, and also Secretary [of Condition Tony] Blinken’s desire to leverage internal STATE DEPT. capabilities appear to have put an exterior appointment off the desk for the present time,” he said.

Former US ambassador to the UAE Barbara Leaf is still expected to be nominated as assistant secretary of condition for Near East affairs but her confirmation, as well as that of Colin Kahl, nominated for undersecretary of defence for policy at the Pentagon, may not happen until the following month.

Mr Lister highlights that Congress has been advocating for a far more vocal and assertive policy along Syria. “We [the US] have troops on the ground watching ISIS slowly resurge over the Euphrates, and we're just four months away from a possibly game-changing Russian severing of most cross-border aid - this is just not enough time for quiet,” he said.

One location that could see some improvement beneath the Biden team will be the humanitarian situation. The administration is near releasing the $230 million in stabilisation financing that was frozen under Mr Trump.

Basma Alloush, insurance policy and advocacy adviser at the Norwegian Refugee Council, points to a good dire humanitarian circumstance which will only worsen if the Biden administration will not act in due training course.

“At a time when global humanitarian funds are decreasing and humanitarian wants increasing, it is important that the Biden team does not lose sight or de-prioritise the humanitarian crisis in Syria,” Ms Alloush told The National.

“If there is zero scale-up in assistance and no political settlement to the Syrian crisis, we are guaranteed to see extra displacement, fewer prospects to seek safeness, and Syrians will remain in precarious, vulnerable positions with their rights violated daily whether or not they're displaced inside Syria or elsewhere,” she said.

Citing measures the administration could take to alleviate the human being suffering, Ms Alloush stated: implementation of a nationwide ceasefire; scaling up financing assistance for crisis response; increasing diplomatic engagement with Syria's neighbours to improve refugee circumstances; engaging with all parties to the conflict to make sure unfettered humanitarian access; renewing the UN Protection Council cross-border image resolution in July; and speedily resettling eligible Syrian refugees to allow them to escape the limbo they happen to be in and commence new lives in their new homes.

But to accomplish these, former US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman sees a good need for more overall flexibility from the US on the issue of sanctions.

“US policies during the last ten years have certainly not helped the Syrian persons build an improved future within their own region,” Mr Feltman, now a good visiting fellow at Brookings Institute, told The National.

The former US diplomat and UN undersecretary general for political affairs says the new administration has to “appear forward and backwards as well: backwards, with regards to maintaining the pressure for accountability for the deaths and destruction of Syria, and forwards in conditions of what america could do to try to reduce additional suffering”.

“Syria is probably not near the top of the set of US foreign policy priorities. But it is usually a subset of several that do appear high on that list, from terrorism to Iranian policy to protection to Israel to human rights, and thus can't be ignored,” he stated, citing the February 26 weather strike as evidence of that.

Mr Feltman is calling for a fresh strategy that uses sanctions to force the regime to provide concessions. “The economic circumstance can be spiralling downward, creating various kinds of existential pressures on the Assad regime. Yes, the Iranians and Russians bailed [Bashar Al] Assad out militarily. But I can't see them prepared or able to take on the long-term activity of bailing him out economically.”

He proposes publicly aiming a list of tangible techniques for the Assad regime to take in return for the non permanent suspension of sanctions. Those steps would be co-ordinated with the Russians and may include prisoner releases, increased respect for individual rights, political reform including decentralisation, and very good faith participation in the UN's Geneva process.

Mr Feltman isn't putting the onus on the Assad regime, with whom he tried to negotiate with very good faith measures during the past to no avail.

What has changed right now, he said, is the economic circumstances, with the Syrian lira in historic lows, and possible Russian pressure, particularly if such a good proposal is linked with the cross-border issue at the UN in July.

“[Mr Al Assad] might refuse,” Mr Feltman said, which would “demonstrate - as though more proof was wanted - that he remains the primary obstacle to a brighter near future for Syria".

At the STATE DEPT., a US official had not been ready to discuss sanctions alleviation or any rapprochement with the Assad regime. “The really dire humanitarian crisis in Syria is normally a direct result of the Assad regime’s blocking of life-conserving assistance, systemic corruption and monetary mismanagement,” the state said.

He called in “the regime and its own supporters to engage seriously found in political dialogue and invite humanitarian assist with reach communities in want".