Syria: the back channel according to l'Orient le Jour

Today I had an interview down the street at Mar Elias Refugee Camp. The interview, with Palestinian jurist Suheil Natour, was extremely interesting. On the way back, given the sun and the heat, I decided to stop for a drink before climbing the hill back towards the apartment. The obvious place to stop: the Sheraton Four Points. In addition to the certainty that I could spend even more there for an iced coffee than I would in Paris, the lure of the cognitive dissonance was simply too strong. What the stock picture I just grabbed online fails to show is that the hotel basically overlooks the camp. From either place, the other is just a stone's throw and a universe away.

Here's the Sheraton:

And here's Mar Elias camp:

My visit to the Sheraton had a couple of upsides, other than the $7 coffee. First, it proved my suspicion that there are no tourists whatsoever in Beirut this summer. In the hour I sat in the lobby drinking and reading the paper I saw not one - not a single one - tourist or, for that matter, westerner. Worrying about the Sheraton is beyond my abilities, but the situation for thousands of small businesses in Beirut is catastrophic.

The other positive result was that I happened upon today's l'Orient le Jour, Beirut's French-language newspaper. In it I ran across an interesting article by one of their reporters entitled "Four days that made the planet tremble" - apparently an insider account of the diplomatic maneuvering around the Syrian gas attack and the US response. The reporter claims an inside source among the diplomatic corps, specifically one of the BRICS countries: Brazil, Russian, India, China and South Africa. The content of this article was very interesting and I thought it might be worth translating the gist of it, as it reveals very clearly - even if I can't vouch for it's complete accuracy - the behind-the-scenes activity that normally remains hidden in a crisis of this kind.

The author starts off by citing some US media opinion that the Syrian crisis was the worst since the fall of the USSR, then asks, what was it that made Obama back off from what appeared to be an imminent attack? What really happened behind the scenes?

She then proceeds to tell the following story, based on her diplomatic contacts: Until the Kerry-Lavrov meeting was called off, back channel negotiations between the US and Russia had been going well. The US had agreed with the Russians that Assad would be forced to step down but be allowed to designate his successor. In other words, no regime change.

Unfortunately, when the Russians approached the Iranians with the idea they got a flat refusal. Therefore, it became necessary to apply more pressure.

Meanwhile, again according to the article, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, formerly Saudi Ambassador to the US, had developed a plan* to take Damascus in a lightning strike, using forces he had assembled and trained in Jordan. To this end, media reports - which we've all seen - about a coming battle in Aleppo had been planted to draw Assad's attention away from Damascus. The recent attacks by the opposition in the area of Latakia were also a diversion, to draw Assad's troops away from the capital. All of this was supposed to take place in concert with a media blitz aimed at forcing Hezb Allah to withdraw its support of the Assad regime, and allowing the attack on Damascus to proceed with minimum opposition.

All of which would have made all the back channel diplomacy irrelevant. Unfortunately, the regime apparently got wind of the plan and struck back with major attacks around Latakia and Damascus. The gassing of nearly 1500 people in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta was presumably part of the effort to secure the Damascus area from Bandar's forces.

The article goes on to characterize the media blitz around the gas attack as part of a US-led campaign to force the Russians and Iranians to agree to abandon the Assad regime. According to the author, the Americans sent envoys to both parties, saying - and here she uses quotes - 'Either you let go of Assad or we'll take him down by force'.

At which point, the Russians and Iranians, rather than objecting, said surprisingly little. The US, in turn, interpreted this as a green light to take down Assad, and started moving forces into the area.

In fact, the Russians and the Iranians were hard at work preparing for the coming attack. The Russians, Iranians, the Syrian regime and Hezb Allah established a joint 'war room' and Russia mobilized its navy in the eastern Mediterranean. Iran mobilized all its military forces. Iran and Russia then warned the US that any strike against Assad would result in a response involving the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el Mandeb - in other words, a direct threat to Western oil supplies. The US was also warned that other targets would be included in the response, meaning, presumably, Israel. And, as we've seen, Assad publicly warned the French on TV that he would attack French targets of opportunity anywhere in response to a French attack. By this, he meant, in the opinion of experts here, car bomb or other attacks in Beirut against French diplomatic targets and French nationals.

Result: the Russian/Iranian gambit seems to have worked, for the moment. Britain has pulled out - who knows what threats were secretly conveyed to ensure this result? France has backed off for the moment, and, as we know, Obama suddenly decided he needed Congressional approval before even considering action. At the moment, I'd bet he's hoping the delay will allow the emergence of some other option (maybe Bandar's cowboys will ride to Damascus, after all), or even simply allow internal opposition to become strong enough to 'force' a change of policy.

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* If he's even alive. There were reports last year that Bandar  had been killed by a bomb in Riyadh. The attack was supposed to have been a Syrian retaliation for an attack in Damascus which killed members of Assad's inner circle.  Bandar is said to have been working for a very long time to topple Bashar el Assad.