Washington discovers once again the limits of power….so it returns to politics

Written by Nasser Kandil,

Those who listen to the press conference of the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will easily discover that the differences which diverge the positions of the two greatest countries in the world are still the same, and will say that we are in front of planned media play to prevent the announcement of failure, because it will have dangerous implications on the international situation. Moreover it is true, that neither those who drove the world to open confrontation can bear it, nor the leaders of the two countries can convince their people with it or bear its consequences. But everyone who wants can confront from his place that what is present will grant the allies of the two countries a qualitative support each one from his ally, and thus the rounds of confrontation which will lead to the emergence of balances of powers for the successive negotiations that are established by the battles of Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, and the North Korea as well as the economic and the financial sanctions and others.

But there are two reasons that prevent reaching to such conclusion. First, the change of the position of the Russian President Vladimir Putin to welcome Tillerson. Second, the announcement of the meeting of the High Commission of the Organization for the Prohibition of the Use of Chemical Weapons in Hague today in response to a common US-Russian call to include an investigation team in the incident of Khan Sheikhoun, and the Russian-US cooperation to facilitate the task of the investigators who will got in advance the approval of Moscow and Washington to be named by all parties.

The first change is that the President Putin has accepted to welcome Tillerson, it was known that it is conditional on the outcome of Tillerson – Lavrov talks, what is intended by the outcomes is not to reach to an understanding on the issues of dispute, but the obtainment of an American commitment to stop acting alone and to consider the strike as the last individual action from outside the bilateral coordination and from outside the international law. The position of the President Putin is not formally but essentially, the meeting with him has meanings that show that the world is moving to an open confrontation between the two greatest countries or to the negotiation and consultation preferring the politics on using power, therefore the consensus and the refusal of Putin to meet Tillerson has direct relation with what will the Americans say regarding the recognition of considering the strike as the last individual act for which they resort. This does not belong only to Syria but to Korea more than Syria and the future of the Iranian nuclear file and others of the issue of disagreement. This recognition would not have happened without the conclusion of Washington of the limited effects of the strike despite the exaggerations which are shown by the media of its allies who ask for more. The strike did not change the balances as Washington assumed, the Syrian field did not witness what show that the armed groups were able to record qualitative achievements, but what has happened was the opposite; Syria’s allies were not affected with panic, their cohesion is behind the choice of confrontation and escalation, there were many offers that were proposed to Washington to make compromises,  but most importantly is that the Syrian people whom the Americans has predicted  a collapse in their morale, and that crowds of millions will move on the borders of Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan leaving Damascus and Aleppo fearing from the threat of war, did not fell of that strike and did not deal with it as a title for the transformation of their lives , on the contrary Damascus and Aleppo lived that night which followed the strike as an ordinary night as the day preceded and followed it, so this was enough for Washington to realize that any subsequent action whatever its size will be, its psychological effect will be less because the impact is just for the first strike, and when reaching to the conclusion  of the limitedness of the force the return to the politics is a must.

The second matter revealed by the two ministers regarding the understanding is an investigation that is carried out by the Organization of the Prohibition of the Chemical Weapons, and the announcement about it by the representative of Russia in the Security Council while he uses the veto to overthrow the Western project against Syria means that the Russian point of view has won in how to manage the issues of disagreement, and that the US recognition of the fall of the prior sanctions which it wanted whether through the strike or through the common draft resolution  with France and Britain was a result of the limitedness of the ability to proceed, and what will result from the understanding with Moscow is the ceiling of the outcomes, on the other hand what will be planned without the knowing of Moscow whatever it is stunning in its beginnings will face an impasse and its resulted will be limited.

The return to consultation and the negotiation are being prepared on a hot tin, but this does not mean the emergence of the understandings to light, but to stop the practical escalation and to transfer it to the political level in order to calm it down and then it becomes possible to form gradual understandings which their title will be the resort to the ballot boxes in Syria regarding the future of Syria after getting rid of ISIS, and linking the current cooperation with the common victory in this war.

Consequently, the Russian tamed the American and returned him to the negotiation waiting for Donald Trump to learn from Tillerson the courtesy of the talk, and how to read carefully the memorandum about the terms of not drinking alcohol too much before making a speech. So it is enough for Putin to tell Tillerson that America does not need for another Boris Yeltsin, you can ask us since we have experienced that before you.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,