Bente Scheller writes:

The regime has so far given no reason to assume that diplomacy alone will get it to change its behavior. Nor has it given any indication that it is willing to make concessions for a lasting peace. It could have offered or honored amnesties, but there isn’t one example of successful reconciliation from any province in Syria.

The local cease-fires strategy embraced by the U.N. under then-Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura delivered much of Syria to the regime without securing any lasting commitments, according to an Atlantic Council report. In areas retaken, the regime has been meticulously investigating any citizen suspected of being politically active, along with their family members. Those arrested have disappeared.

The issue of the more than 100,000 forcibly disappeared people is pressing and the regime’s way of addressing this significant matter is particularly relevant. When family members insisted on their right to know the whereabouts of their loved ones, Russia pressured the regime to disclose their fate. The regime’s response was a few hundred carelessly issued death certificates, many stating natural causes. This is characteristic of the regime’s approach: It will cooperate formally but not substantively.

The regime’s weaponization of aid also reveals its approach toward dealing with the international community. During the sieges of East Aleppo until 2016 and Ghouta until 2018, the regime did not even respond to U.N. demands for aid relief. It allowed only a limited number of convoys and arbitrarily removed items from the trucks that had been approved. Citizens waiting for the distribution of U.N. aid were bombarded; in one instance an entire convoy was destroyed.

This raises a red flag: Any diplomacy that adapts to Assad’s intransigence merely licenses further human rights violations. And there is even less reason for hope considering the actors driving the current push towards rapprochement. Human rights are not a concern for these states.

A more plausible reason for the thaw is that those mending fences, especially those neighboring Syria, want to create a pretext for forcing refugees back to the country. In so doing, these states are showing disregard for refugees’ safety; they are also assuming that the regime is willing to take the refugees back. [Continue reading…]