London 11 Endorse Geneva II + Gray Lady Postmortem on Obama's Syria Policy

A long postmortem on the Obama administration's policy toward Syria appears today in the New York Times. There are no new revelations in "Obama’s Uncertain Path Amid Syria Bloodshed," written by Mark Mazzetti, Robert Worth and Michael Gordon, except for the detail that CIA's covert program to arm and train the rebels began in April rather than June. Samantha Power comes off as a twit; White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough comes away looking good -- a persistent critic of military involvement in the civil war.

The word picture painted by Mazzetti, Worth and Gordon is of a skeptical commander-in-chief rope-a-doping a bloodthirsty foreign policy establishment, as well as Israel's Netanyahu, who was frightened that Hezbollah might acquire a portion of Syria's chemical weapons stock, and Jordan's King Abdullah, who was worried about the number of Syrian refugees he was having to harbor.

The article is skimpy when it comes to describing Obama's momentous decision to seek Congressional authorization for an attack on Syria and his quickly abandoning that route when the Russians came forward with a deal to have Syria sign the Chemical Weapons Convention. Nowhere is there a discussion of the overwhelming public and Congressional opposition to the Authorization of the Use of Military Force that stymied the warmongers and had Obama and Kerry grasping for the Lavrov-brokered deal.

The news this morning is that Geneva II appears to be a "go." This from Michael Gordon and Alan Cowell in "U.S. and 10 Other Nations Back Peace Talks, but Syrian Moderates Are Uncertain":

The communiqué issued by the London 11, as the group of nations is known, endorsed several points that are important to the Syrian opposition, but also lacked important details. 

It reiterated that a transitional government should be established as part of a political settlement, and said that when the transitional body was formed, President Bashar al-Assad and his close associates “with blood on their hands will have no role in Syria.” That approach is sharply at odds with the notion floated recently by Mr. Assad, who said in an interview that he was thinking about running for re-election in 2014. 

The communiqué also called for stepping up support to the political and military wings of the moderate Syrian opposition, but did not specify what additional assistance was to be provided.

The Syrian opposition coalition will meet next week to decide if it will attend. Since its president, Ahmad Assi al-Jarba, owes his position to Saudi influence I suppose there is a chance that the Syrian National Coalition will boycott Geneva II. Saudi Arabia has been making its disappointment with the current trend of international affairs known of late, first by declining to address the United Nations General Assembly and then refusing a seat that it had lobbied for on the Security Council.

But the train if not already gone is leaving the station:

On Tuesday, Martin Nesirky, a United Nations spokesman, said preparatory meetings would be held on Nov. 5 involving Russia, the United States and Lakhdar Brahimi, the special United Nations envoy for Syria, followed by a meeting that includes the other three permanent Security Council members — Britain, China and France. 

Mr. Kerry said Tuesday that he thought the moderate opposition leaders would decide to participate.

And it is unclear even if the Saudis are able to block participation in Geneva II by al-Jarba what this would mean. The Syrian National Coalition has always been something of a fiction, a creature of Turkish hotel conference rooms. If the great powers want to broker a peace deal on Syria, which now seems to be the case with the rise of Al Nusra Front and Islamic State of Syria and al-Sham, participation by the "official" Syrian opposition is not necessary. Hence the Saudi tantrums.