Harvard–Belfer on Syria

"In the past month, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched three major terror attacks: the downing of a Russian airplane over Sinai, two suicide bombings in Beirut and coordinated suicide attacks against civilians in Paris. The wave of violence had five targets: Russia, Egypt, Hezbollah, Lebanon and France. The ambitiousness of these actions appears to mark a shift in ISIL’s strategy that will likely trigger heightened military attacks against its facilities, supply lines and leaders. After the Paris attacks, French President François Hollande promised a “merciless” response against ISIL."

“Syrian peace talks” is one of those phrases where the soothing words don’t fit the nightmare reality. But the indefatigable Secretary of State John F. Kerry is making another try this weekend in Vienna, and there’s more to this effort than just his good intentions.

President Obama says he doesn’t want to turn the Syria conflict into a proxy war. Unfortunately, that’s already happening, as combatants join the battle against the Islamic State with radically differing agendas that could collide.

"Maybe there is something in the water in Vienna that makes people act like adults. Whatever it is, the meetings this week in Vienna on Thursday and Friday suggest that several significant and positive changes are taking place across several conflict zones and stress points in the Middle East. The Vienna gatherings are so interesting because they touch on half a dozen different ideological or military conflicts that take place at several different levels. They all converge in the Middle East, and their epicenter is Syria, which is burning out of control and scorching everyone around it."

A Syrian Kurdish militia that was initially seen by U.S. commanders as a sideshow has emerged as the strongest U.S.-backed force against the Islamic State — forcing a hasty reevaluation of U.S. strategy after the collapse of a $500 million plan for training and equipping Syrian rebels.

Russia’s expanded role in the Middle East has been hiding in plain sight for months. And the Obama administration, eager for Moscow’s diplomatic help, all but invited it. Now that Russian jets and tanks have arrived in Syria, this intervention doesn’t look so benign.

David Ignatius, Senior Fellow at the Future of Diplomacy Project and award-winning Washington Post columnist and novelist examines the lessons that can be drawn from ISIS's rise and considers what hopes there can be for stability in the Middle East.

"President Barack Obama could use this moment to devise a real political strategy, rather than oscillating between moralizing tirades against Putin's support for what remains of the Syrian state and the apolitical, meaningless mission of degrading the Islamic State. U.S. strikes in Syria should only be tied to positively defined goals, such as counterterrorism to defend U.S. interests, stopping the Islamic State from resupplying operations to Iraq, or supporting Kurdish enclaves."

"Regional actors will no doubt try to pass the buck and get Americans to do their fighting for them. U.S. leaders should reject such ploys politely but firmly and pass the buck right back. ISIS is not an existential threat to the United States, to Middle Eastern energy supplies, to Israel, or to any other vital U.S. interest, so U.S. military forces have no business being sent into harm's way to fight it."

"How can we say to history that we helped maintain in power the man ultimately responsible for the repression of an uprising that began peacefully and which has caused the deaths of more than 200,000 people, amid gas and barrel bomb attacks, and has produced four million externally displaced and eight million internally displaced persons. If he is not to answer to this tragedy, he can at least leave power."