Syria not really a priority for Biden but US near releasing humanitarian funding

When he was vice president under 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 red brand on chemical weapons in 2013 and advising caution in arming rebel groups.

But as the Syrian conflict enters its 11th time, there are no signals that Syria will be anywhere near the top of Mr Biden's Middle East agenda, or that he'll get involved militarily beyond retaliatory and counter-terrorism strikes found in the country.

As the previous two US administrations appointed a special envoy to Syria, Mr Biden hasn't yet done so, although he has assigned special envoys to Yemen and Iran.

Instead, the Biden workforce has maintained Aimee Cutrona as acting special representative for Syria engagement and offers for the most part run the document from the White House, and table officers at the STATE DEPT. and the Pentagon.

Charles Lister, senior fellow and director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism and Extremism programmes at the center East Institute think container, describes the first 8 weeks of the Biden policy on Syria as a continuation from Donald Trump's administration.

“What we have so far from the Biden administration over Syria policy is a fantastic offer of continuity and incredibly little change - but to come to be frank, that’s also because we’ve seen hardly any 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 businesses and, in a Trump-like move, 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 Department exercised substantially gravitas in the Syria 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 Transition Assistance Response Group, is director for Iraq and Syria.

“A soft review of Syria policy continues to be under way in the White House and that’s largely stifled the State Department’s capability to exert itself beyond the bounds of standard activity,” Mr Lister said.

He's not anticipating a good political appointee will fill the Syria envoy’s seat at the STATE DEPT..

“Concerns over the effect of prioritising Iran plan over Syria, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s desire to leverage internal STATE DEPT. capabilities, may actually have put an external appointment off the desk for the present time,” Mr Lister said.

Former US ambassador to the UAE Barbara Leaf continues to be likely to be nominated as assistant secretary of status for Close to East affairs, but her confirmation - and that of Colin Kahl, nominated for undersecretary of defence for policy at the Pentagon - might not exactly happen until the following month.

Mr Lister highlights that Congress has been advocating for a more vocal and assertive policy on the subject of Syria.

“We [the US] have troops on the floor seeing ISIS slowly resurge over the Euphrates, and we're just four months from a potentially game-changing Russian severing of all cross-border aid - this is merely not enough time for quiet,” he said.

One region that could find some improvement beneath the Biden team will be the humanitarian situation on Syria.

The administration is near to releasing the $230 million in stabilisation funding that was frozen under Mr Trump.

Basma Alloush, insurance policy and advocacy adviser in the Norwegian Refugee Council, points to a dire humanitarian circumstance that may only worsen if the Biden administration does not act.

“At a time when global humanitarian funds are decreasing and humanitarian desires increasing, it's important that the Biden team will not lose view or de-prioritise the humanitarian crisis in Syria,” Ms Alloush told The National.

“If there is zero scale-up in assistance no political settlement to the Syrian crisis, we are guaranteed to see extra displacement and fewer opportunities to seek safety.

"Syrians will remain found in precarious, vulnerable positions with their privileges violated daily, whether or not they're displaced interior Syria or perhaps elsewhere,” she said.

To alleviate human troubled, Ms Alloush called on the US to: implement a nationwide ceasefire; level up financing assistance for crisis response; rise diplomatic engagement with Syria's neighbours to improve refugee conditions; build relationships all parties to make sure unfettered humanitarian access; renew the UN Secureness Council cross-border quality in July; and speedily resettling eligible Syrian refugees.

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

“US policies over the last a decade have certainly not helped the Syrian persons build a better future within their own country,” Mr Feltman, now a good visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute wonder tank, told The National.

The former US diplomat and UN undersecretary general for political affairs says the brand new administration has to “appear forward and backwards simultaneously".

It will "look backwards, in conditions of maintaining the pressure for accountability for the deaths and destruction of Syria, and forwards regarding what the United States could do to attempt to reduce additional suffering”, Mr Feltman said.

“Syria is typically not near the top of the set of US foreign policy priorities. Nonetheless it can be a subset of many that do appear high on that list, from terrorism to Iranian insurance policy to protection to Israel to individual rights, and thus cannot be ignored.”.

Mr Feltman is calling for a fresh methodology that uses sanctions to force the regime to provide concessions. “The economic situation is normally spiralling downward, creating several types 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 job of bailing him out economically.”

He proposes publicly aiming a list of tangible techniques for the Assad regime to take return for the short-term suspension of sanctions.

Those steps will be co-ordinated with the Russians and may include prisoner releases, increased respect for human legal rights, political reform - including decentralisation - and good faith participation in the UN's Geneva process.

Mr Feltman isn't putting the onus in the Assad regime, with which whom he tried to negotiate with very good faith measures in the past.

What has changed right now, he said, may be the economic circumstance, 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 explained, which would “demonstrate - as though more proof was desired - that he continues to be the principal obstacle to a brighter near future for Syria".

At the State Department, a US official had not been ready to discuss sanctions alleviation or any rapprochement with the Assad regime.

“The extremely dire humanitarian crisis in Syria is the result of the Assad regime’s blocking of life-saving assistance, systemic corruption and economic mismanagement,” the official said.

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