Window opens for those who want to try to address the gaping absence of strategic thinking

The delay in the mooted US-led strikes on Syria, caused in part by divisions between the White House and the Pentagon over the potential targets, has allowed a range of mediators to intervene in an attempt to avoid military conflict.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in particular have been on the phone to Vladimir Putin trying to find a solution. On the basis of his conversations with Moscow and Washington, Erdoğan claimed on Friday that the situation was calming down, but he has given little indication of a scenario that may dissuade Donald Trump from sending cruise missiles into Syria.

Q&A What are the military options in Syria? Show Hide In theory there are three alternative responses - the first a punitive strike such as the US attack on the Shayrat air base in April 2017 that saw 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles hit the the air base in response to a chemical weapons attack. The second level of attack is to seek to prevent Syria attempting to use chemical weapons again by destroying the relevant facilities, the means of delivery and imposing a punishment. The third level of activity is to seek to weaken the entire Assad military infrastructure or even attack Assad's presidential palace, as well as Syrian military headquarters. But there is no appetite in Western capitals to forcibly dislodge Assad from office, even if there may be an unspoken wish to change the way the Syrian government negotiates at UN peace talks in Geneva.



At the UN, Sweden’s Olof Skoog is testing support for a draft resolution designed to require Syria to get rid of chemical weapons “once and for all”.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons declared in January 2016 that Syria had acted on a 2013 deal between Russia and the Obama administration. The OPCW verified that the Syrian government had destroyed all of its declared weapons stockpile.

Subsequent attacks have clearly shown that Syria retained a secret stock or the capacity to replenish some that it lost. Sweden now proposes a high-level UN mission go to Syria to ensure its disarmament. It is not clear, however, how a new UN mission would be any more effective in persuading an emboldened Syrian government to tell the truth or abide by the conventions of war.

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A new disarmament mission would also mean the west would have twice threatened to punish Syria for its use its repeated use of chemical weapons before backing down each. In the eyes of the Trump White House it would marka repeat of the mistake made by Barack Obama in 2013.

It would also mark a reverse of the more punitive stance Trump adopted in 2017 when he launched 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase after a chemical attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun in the north-west of the country. Nor would it satisfy the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who has spoken of France’s capacity to act autonomously in Syria. Macron is to travel to Washington later this month.

The White House is likely to be listening more closely to the mediatory efforts of Turkey and Israel, the two regional players to Syria’s north and south. Both countries will be pressing something more broad-ranging than a simple disarmament commission.

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Israel wants to use Bashar al-Assad’s alleged overreach as a lever to change the strategic balance in Syria, mainly by prising Russia away from Iran, its key partner in the country. In his calls to Putin, Netanyahu has pressed his belief that the true source of instability in Syria is Iranian aggression and Tehran’s determination to establish a military presence in Syria that Israel believes would threaten its existence.

A Russian pledge to the US to contain the Iranian-backed Hezbollah inside Syria is high on the list of demands of Trump’s new national security adviser, John Bolton. The US, Israel and Turkey are united in their concern that Iranian-backed forces are intent on expanding in eastern

Syria.

Ali Alkbar Velayati, the foreign policy adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in Damascus on Thursday: “East of Euphrates is also a very important and valuable area, we hope the next steps will be taken in order to liberate east of Euphrates and expel the occupying Americans from that area.”

Russian assurances about Iran’s future role may be unobtainable, but they may have greater strategic value than a simple punitive strike.

Influential British MPs, including those with pro-interventionist leanings, also sense the moment for an immediate strike may be passing, and that a better option would be to station assets off Syria with one last warning to Assad about the attacks that will be swiftly mounted if he uses chemical weapons again.



Either way, those that want to step back and think about what this episode reveals about the gaping absence of strategic thinking on Syria have perhaps for a short time a stage they previously lacked.