Mick Hartley

What legacy will Obama leave behind in the Middle East? Pretty much as bad as it could be. Tony Badran:

While the Republican National Convention was dominating headlines, the Obama administration’s management of the Syria crisis went from bad to worse.

Secretary of State John Kerry last week announced an agreement of military and intelligence cooperation with Russia in Syria to fight ISIS and the Nusra Front. No sooner had the deal been announced than NATO member Turkey, from whose Incirlik airbase the US conducts anti-ISIS operations, almost succumbed to a military coup that could’ve sent the country into chaos.

And on Sunday, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta described the current situation in Syria as “the worst-case scenario” for American interests.

Specifically, he told CBS, the worst-case scenario “is that [Bashar al-] Assad continues to remain in power,” “that the Russians continue to have a presence there” and continue to attack moderate Syrian forces and, finally, that ISIS would benefit from the mess.

Those headlines — partnership with Russia as NATO and US allies come under increasing pressure — capture the essence of President Obama’s Syria policy.

To understand the president’s decisions in Syria, one must look to his signature foreign-policy initiative: the deal with Iran. Since Syrian dictator Assad is Iran’s strategic ally, Obama long ago decided he wouldn’t back the effort to topple him.

Before the rise of ISIS in Syria, regional allies had urged Washington to bolster the American alliance against Iran. But they misread Obama.

Allies in Europe and the Middle East watched in confusion and disbelief as the president constantly privileged Russian and Iranian interests in Syria over their own. Meanwhile, the Syrian disaster grew worse, the body count rose and refugees flooded out of the country in larger numbers.

As the crisis deepened, the White House subtly but unmistakably shifted the goalposts. By 2013, the administration had made it known that the president regretted his initial call for Assad to “step aside.”

Obama even went as far as publicly recognizing what he called Iran’s “equities” in Syria — shorthand for Iran’s ability to maintain its bridge to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and to supply it with missiles aimed at Israel. The White House then put our priorities in Syria in line with Russian and Iranian interests….

The latest agreement with the Kremlin, announced by Kerry, makes the US a partner in Russia’s war to save the Assad regime — the logical endgame of Obama’s policy.

Critics of the president’s Syria policy have often accused him of being too passive. This is a mistake.

The White House has been actively shaping the Syrian theater, both diplomatically and militarily. Only it has done so in a manner that has undercut and endangered US allies and interests. The worst-case scenario is what Obama will leave behind.