As 2016 closed, Russia and Turkey announced that they had brokered a cease-fire with opposition groups fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The agreement would be followed by peace talks between the Damascus government and some rebel forces, with Moscow, Tehran and Ankara acting as brokers. The cease-fire has proven fragile, and has been punctuated by violations from its inception. If it does endure, however, it will have a dual significance: Not only will it have brought peace to the embattled country, but it will have done so without the involvement of the United States or the United Nations. This is the first such cease-fire struck without Washington and it could, given comments by President-elect Donald Trump on the campaign trail, signal the beginning of a new diplomatic era for the Middle East, one with a much-reduced role for the U.S.
Nearly six years of bloody fighting in Syria have resulted in more than 300,000 deaths and forced more than 11 million people to flee their homes. Dozens of rebel groups, some backed by the U.S., others supported by Sunni governments in the Persian Gulf, are fighting the Assad regime, which in turn enjoys backing from Russia and Iran. In the past, Turkey backed rebel groups, but in recent months the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been working with Russia, ostensibly on behalf of the rebels, for peace.
Erdogan's shift reflects anger at Washington for backing Kurdish rebels in Syria that, he claims, support terrorism in his country, as well as U.S. criticism of the state of emergency that Ergodan declared in the wake of a failed coup last year. Erdogan has also calculated that Russia has the upper hand in Syria as a result of its indifference to the human costs of intervention in the war and aligning with Moscow will give Turkey more say in the final outcome in Syria. Most importantly, it will better position Erdogan to dictate terms to Kurdish rebel forces in Syria that he considers a threat to Turkey's own sovereignty.