Peace Conference Impediments

United Nations special representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi was trundled out to appear before the cameras in Geneva to announce that no peace talks are in the offing any time soon.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet next week with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov to try to reach agreement on a peace conference. The rundown can be found in a story today by Nick Cumming-Bruce and Michael R. Gordon, "Hopes for Syria Talks Hinge on Kerry-Lavrov Meeting." A sticking point is the attendance of Iran. This sticking point is prior to the big sticking point, which is the role of Bashar al-Assad in any transitional government. So it doesn't look good.

Kerry was in Jedda meeting with Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. Without anything to go on other than pure speculation, I'd say that the discussion revolved around Afghanistan -- getting the Saudis to pressure the Taliban to agree to a power-sharing agreement with the Karzai government -- and what a successful U.S.-led military campaign to bring Syria to the bargaining table minus al-Assad would look like -- obviously a lot of missile strikes. War not peace was definitely the main focus.

The shrillness of the rhetoric coming from the monarchy (al-Faisal accused the Syrian government of committing genocide) and the West (Susan Rice blasted the UN Security Council for failing to oust al-Assad) I interpret as evidence that rebel territorial acquisitions of the last two years are rapidly disintegrating. More evidence is the rash of terrorist attacks in neighboring Iraq and Lebanon, always a reliable indication of jihadi battlefield setbacks.

The Gulf Arab monarchies will not launch a direct military attack unless it is under the umbrella of a United States planned and coordinated and implemented air campaign a la Libya. This is what appears to be in the works. There are many obstacles -- very little if any domestic support in the U.S. among voters; international law; resistance in the U.S. military to being drawn in to the mother of all quagmires -- but nothing in the end that will prevent it from happening. Seeing this, the Russians are probably using Snowden as a chip.