US-Russia agreement can be a crucial move

Eliminating Daesh is a military task, which is separate from the political aim of ending the Syrian civil war

It is encouraging that the United States and Russia have reached a tentative agreement on how to end the Syrian civil war despite being on opposite sides. This surprising level of accord follows four years of modest US support for the rebels and a few weeks after Russia sent troops into Syria on the side of the government. Nonetheless, US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed at the G20 summit on Sunday on the need for the United Nations to lead new talks, seek to implement a ceasefire and install a transitional government, as had been outlined by their foreign ministers in Vienna the previous day.

It is very sad indeed that this new level of international agreement did not happen long ago through rational discussion, but had been forced on the G20 leaders by the horror of last Friday’s attacks in Paris, which were claimed by Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) from its base in Syria.

Both Putin and Obama recognise that they have major differences even if they share the same objective of eliminating Daesh. Russia insists that its air campaign in Syria is aimed at Daesh, but the US and others in the West think Moscow actually wants to attack the opponents of their ally Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

Nonetheless, the G20 has been dominated by the threat of terror in the wake of the Paris attacks and the summit is expected to express its alarm over an “acute and growing flow of foreign terrorist fighters” into their countries and also plan to share intelligence, track border crossings and greatly increase aviation security.

Any mission against Daesh is quite distinct from seeking to end the Syrian civil war, although both tasks are intimately linked. Ending Daesh needs a harsh military assault handled in a military coalition targeted on the terrorists, whereas ending the Syrian civil war needs a long-term inclusive political process, which has been outlined in the Vienna meetings and now at the G20.