Diplomatic Fallout: Has Promise of Peace Talks Made Syria War Worse?

Diplomatic Fallout: Has Promise of Peace Talks Made Syria War Worse?

Will the Syrian government and its opponents ever sit down for negotiations in Geneva? It has been more than a month since U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced plans for a peace conference in the Swiss city. There were suggestions that the meeting could happen in May or June. But it has been pushed back repeatedly, while Russia and the U.S. appear to be edging closer to a full-scale proxy war in Syria. The promise of talks in Geneva may even have made the conflict worse.

When Kerry met Lavrov in Moscow in early May, Kerry needed to save diplomacy over Syria from imminent collapse. The Obama administration was under mounting pressure to arm the rebels in response to reports that pro-government forces had used chemical weapons. Lakhdar Brahimi, despairing after eight months’ service as envoy to Syria for the United Nations and the Arab League, had declared his intention to resign. The Geneva talks proposal made it look like there was a last hope for a peace deal.

This was enough to keep Brahimi on board. But it also created perverse incentives for other, more powerful, players to escalate the conflict. If there was even a minimal chance of real negotiations backed by Moscow and Washington, all parties wanted to secure the strongest negotiating positions possible before talks began.

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.