Taking Pages From Iran's Playbook

The Assad regime in Syria agreed today "in principle" to attend a peace conference with the rebels and a number of international participants.  This surely is the influence on Assad of Iran in action.  Think about it.  For nearly the entire last decade, Iran has been attending one after another negotiation, conference and discussion with different groups from the West to "discuss" the IRanian nuclear program.  During that entire time, while a positive outcome from the negotiations has gotten no nearer, Iran's nuclear program has moved consistently forward.  Right now, we are less than a year from the final development of the Iranian nukes.  In the Syrian context, attending a peace negotiaion is a similar move by Assad.  While the possibility of a negotiated peace is on the radar, many Western countries will refrain from helping the rebels so as not to upset the delicate negotiations.  On the other side, Iran and Russia will continue to pour weapons into Syria.  During the negotiations, efforts to stop the use of chemical weapons (outside these negotiations) will also wither and die.  Assad gets time, additional weapons at no cost, and he weakens the rebels in the same move.  For Assad, it is a no lose proposition.

It would be nice to think that the American government recognizes this for what it really is.  Our foreign policy team is so dense, however, that such recognition is unlikely.  Peace negotiations on the present course will just mean another 10,000 or 20,000 dead Syrians.