What does it mean Saudi Arabia’s saying? “European pressure on Washington to refuse the nomination of the Al-Assad and his supporters”

Written by Nasser Kandil,

In front of an observer and a reader a set of separate and interrelated news together, and a set of questions which seek for answers that are not found in an individual text. On one hand,  Moscow’s meetings  which included for two days the US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have ended,  where the American and the Russian official statements say that the discussions was devoted to the Syrian crisis, how to coordinate the military and political efforts in the war on ISIS and Al Nusra and to provide the conditions for the success of applying the provisions of ceasing the hostile actions and the mechanisms of the political solution for the crisis in Syria. On the other hand, we are in front of the explicit statement of the US Secretary of State John Kerry that he will conceal about what the understanding has led to in order to ensure the success of the understandings, especially because they are different from their precedents through surrounding all the complications and entanglements which cause the confusion in applying the previous understandings.

After a day of Moscow’s meeting Kerry went to London and met some of Washington’s allies, he said that he is moving in order to put his allies in the form of Moscow’s understandings and the study of the ways in order to accelerate their applying,. After two days Kerry will head with his fellow the US Defense Minister Ashton Carter a meeting that includes the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministers of the countries that are affiliated in the alliance which is led by Washington for the war on ISIS. The meeting will have a title, it is the preparation for what is before and what is after the liberation of Raqqa and Mosul from the control of ISIS, while it seems clear that this mission is related organically to a direct partnership with Russia, Iran, and the two Syrian and Iraqi armies after the groups which are sponsored by Washington have failed in achieving any mentioned breakthrough in the areas under ISIS’s control.

From the military and security angle, it was easy to make a questionnaire about Washington’s consent on the Russian proposal by including ISIS and Al Nusra to one package and abandoning the theory of waging the war in stages that are preceded by getting rid of ISIS. That was clear in the words of the US Ministers Kerry and Carter, this was shown in the speech attributed to Kerry before the visit of Moscow from Colorado through his description of the Army of Islam and Ahrar Al Sham as terrorist organizations after the formal refusal of Washington in the Security Council of that description which Moscow has presented. The American talk about the committing of the group of Nour Al Din Zanki of slaughtering the Syrian child in Aleppo and its description of terrorism if the incident and its responsibility about it were proven shows that the Americans have positioned in the issue of the armed groups which fight in the Northern of Syria with Al Nusra front closer to the Russia position and practically closer to the Syrian position.

The failed coup in Turkey has accompanied Kerry’s tours which are dedicated to Moscow’s understandings, and despite what has happened in Turkey the mobility which is being handled by Kerry remained devoted to the understanding on Syria. The coup and what has proceeded it and what has followed it of Turkey’s positions about normalizing the relations with the neighbors or with Syria by name in addition to the Turkish confusion and preoccupation and the isolation which stifles Turkey has come in the light of the retaliatory procedures which turned Turkey into big jail in order to make Washington’s mission more easier and affordable. It is noticeable that Kerry has added the Yemeni file to his talks, as if he wanted to say something that is uncomfortable to the Saudis announcing that the Syrian issue is our issue and the allies have to commit to their limits.

This mobility has occurred during the approach of the presidential American elections, and which was announced from the need of the ruling Democratic Party for presidential support that is provided by the victories on ISIS and which the Americans were unable to achieve alone, and if this support is not achieved in August then it will not be achieved and will not be useful, therefore its completion requires an acceleration in making use of what is left of July to provide its conditions and its suitable backgrounds, it is exclusively though the understandings with Russia and Iran, and ensuring a vital partnership with the Syrian and the Iraqi armies and their allies in this war on ISIS. This mobility as well comes within parallel context of the approach of the deadline in Tehran’s meeting between the Defense Ministers of Russia, Iran, and Syria for starting a reverse attack in the northern of Syria with or without the consensus of Washington, it occurs within a field context in which the Syrian army and the allies prove the end of the bet on the ability of Al Nusra Front in achieving any change in the balances of the Northern of Syria which are in favor of the Syrian army and its allies. This American mobility comes in the last opportunities which are provided by what is left from the mandate of the US President for the arrangements before the withdrawal from Afghanistan. These arrangements are exclusively with Russia, Iran and China as terrestrial neighboring countries to Afghanistan, which will have the opportunity for the first time to connect by land after the American departure in the early of the next year. On addition to the need of Washington for understandings on the maps of the Asian security before granting the giants of Asia the present of this departure.

What is the secret which Kerry hided, is the question which is surely its content is not military or security secret, but it is a political one that will confuse Washington’s allies if it is not allowed to handle its promotion and the well preparation for it. In meetings such as those which are running it is exactly the answer for the question what will change in the draft of the political solution in Syria, and what will ensure the availability of the opportunities for the success of the political process which without it the understandings will not have but only circumstantial limited effects since the problem is known, and  which Kerry has already described it in his talk about the impatience because Russia did not resolve clearly an answer for the question about the fate of the Syrian President.

Saudi Arabia revealed the secret through what the newspaper AL Hayat which it funded and operated has published, it said clearly ” European countries among them Britain, Germany, and France have pushed the US Secretary of State John Kerry to stick in the negotiations with the Russian side to ” refuse the nomination of the President Bashar Al-Assad and his aides” in elections that will hold in the end of the transitional period in the mid of the next year in conjunction with Kerry’s proposal of a draft of an agreement with Moscow, that has stated on the parallelism between three tracks that deal with the ceasing-fire, fighting ISIS and Al Nusra Front, and the political transition starting from the next  end of August”.

Kerry has notified them that the Russian American understanding on the political solution in Syria includes a resolving for the issue of the Syrian presidency through presidential elections under UN supervision and that the Syrian President will be a candidate in these elections. While Saudi Arabia said publicly that it betted on the European pressure on Washington to change its position or in other words it said that the impasse has occurred and there is nothing left but the praying after its confrontation has become impossible.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,