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 World powers are meeting in Germany on Thursday in an attempt to
revive peace efforts, but with Moscow backing a government push for
all-out military victory, opposition delegates and Western officials
see little hope of a breakthrough.
United Nations Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura halted the first
attempt to negotiate an end to Syria's war in two years after an
unprecedented offensive by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad against Western-backed rebels supported by Russian air
strikes.
In an attempt to prevent a collapse of diplomatic efforts to end
Syria's five-year-old civil war, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
is pushing for a ceasefire and increased humanitarian aid access
ahead of a meeting of the so-called International Syria Support
Group (ISSG) in Munich.
But one U.N. diplomatic source said Russia was "stringing Kerry
along" in order to provide diplomatic cover for Moscow's real goal -
to help Assad win on the battlefield instead of compromising at the
negotiating table.
"It's clear to everyone now that Russia really doesn't want a
negotiated solution but for Assad to win," said the diplomatic
source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
 A senior adviser to Assad, Bouthaina Shaaban, told Reuters in
Damascus on Tuesday that there would be no let-up in the army
advance, which aimed to recapture the city of Aleppo from rebels and
secure Syria's border with Turkey.
Saudi-backed rebels said they would go to Munich and attend U.N.
peace talks later this month but called on Obama to be more forceful
with Russia over its bombing.
Spokesman Salim al-Muslat said: "I believe he can really stop these
attacks by the Russians on Syrians. If he is willing to save our
children it is really the time now to say 'no' to these strikes in
Syria."
"I believe he can do it but it is really strange for us that we
don't hear this from him," Muslat told Reuters.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius also questioned the
commitment of the United States to resolving the war.
"There are the ambiguities including among the actors of the
coalition ... I'm not going to repeat what I've said before about
the main pilot of the coalition," Fabius said. "But we don't have
the feeling that there is a very strong commitment that is there."
Rebel groups say that while Washington has put pressure on them to
attend peace talks, they see less help on the battlefield. Appeals
for anti-aircraft missiles to counter the latest offensive are
falling on deaf ears.
TARGET DATE
De Mistura set a target date of Feb. 25 to reconvene talks between
the Syrian government and opposition in Geneva.
But in less than two weeks, the offensive by Syrian forces,
Hezbollah and Shiite militias directed by Iran - all backed by
Russian bombing raids - have reversed opposition gains on the ground
and encircled rebels inside Aleppo, a strategic prize now divided
between government and opposition control.
 This has caused alarm among U.N. and Western officials, who believe
the goal of the Russian-Syrian-Iranian campaign is to destroy the
opposition's negotiating power in Geneva, kill them on the ground,
and secure the first major military victory since Moscow began
bombing opposition forces in Syria in September.
"It'll be easy to get a ceasefire soon because the opposition will
all be dead," a Western diplomat told Reuters. "That's a very
effective ceasefire."
The latest fighting around Aleppo has killed about 500 people on all
sides, a monitoring group said.
Other Western officials said Kerry overestimated his influence and
ability to bring the Russians around. They said he appeared to
believe that since he achieved what some saw as unachievable by
getting a nuclear deal with Iran he could do the same with Syria.
They noted that the two cases were different. With Iran, Russia
wanted a political agreement whereas in Syria it is pushing for a
military victory by the Syrian government.
"The Russians are playing cat and mouse with Kerry," said a senior
European diplomat.
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While it will not be difficult to get Russia to agree on an increase
in aid deliveries, Western officials said, Moscow is clearly not
committed to a comprehensive ceasefire that would halt what it seems
as military momentum that favors the Syrian army and its
Iranian-backed supporters.
FALSE ASSUMPTIONS
"U.S. policy was always based on a series of false assumptions. The
main false assumption was that there is no military solution to the
Syria crisis," said Christopher Harmer, an analyst with the
Institute for the Study of War.
"The Assad regime has no interest in a political solution," he said.
"The Russians have no interest in a political solution. Iran has no
interest in a political solution. Hezbollah has no interest in a
political solution."
Russia says its air strikes have been targeting Islamic State, a
militant Islamist group that has seized large parts of Syria and
Iraq, and not Western-backed opposition groups. But U.S. and
European officials say that is not the case.
Fewer than 30 percent of Russia's air strikes are targeting Islamic
State, a group that a U.S.-led coalition conducts bombing sorties
against on a daily basis, Western officials say.
From the beginning, ISSG, which includes the United States and
Russia, as well as key regional powers such as rivals Saudi Arabia
and Iran and European nations, has been struggling to find common
ground within its disparate ranks on ending the Syrian war.
After agreeing in November a road map for a ceasefire, U.N.-brokered
talks between the government and opposition, and eventual elections,
the ISSG has been unable to move ahead with peace talks. Some
officials predict that the talks, like the opposition, could die a
slow death in the coming months.
BICKERING BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
A December meeting of the group was largely characterized by
closed-door bickering about which groups in Syria should or should
not be labeled a terrorist organization, which would bar them from
the negotiating table.
Jordan had been assigned the task of drawing up the list and
collected proposals from members of the group. Iranian Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was infuriated when he saw that
someone had proposed putting the Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds
Force, which is actively supporting Assad, on the list of terrorist
groups.
"Zarif suggested that Iran might propose including the CIA as well,"
a Western diplomat said. After that, Kerry and Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov, who were chairing the meeting, briefly
discussed the idea of having the CIA included.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar have not hidden their view that there
is little holding international negotiations when the Russian air
strikes and Syrian government advance continue.
On the other side, Iran has made clear that it believes the Saudis -
not Iran, Russia or Assad - are the major obstacle to peace. "There
are some countries that it seems don't want peace to be restored in
Syria," a senior official involved in the Syria talks said.
He also predicted there would be no breakthrough in Munich.
The Kremlin rejects claims that it has abandoned diplomacy in
pursuit of a military solution, saying it would continue to
providing military aid to Assad to fight "terrorist groups" and
accusing Syria's opposition of walking away from the talks.
(Additional reporting Parisa Hafezi in Ankara, Jonathan Landay in
Washington and Michelle Nichols in New York; Editing by Giles
Elgood)
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