Vienna Talks May Have Delivered Gift to Assad

The reality is that this doomed process is Russia’s attempt to avoid being bogged down in an endless war in Syria. Around six weeks into its intervention in Syria, there is little to show. The rebels have even taken new areas despite the Russian presence. Breaking the ISIL-imposed siege of the Kweiris airbase took a month of heavy air reinforcement supported by Iranian-backed militias, following a seven-month effort to break it. It is also telling that Iran’s notorious spymaster Qasem Soleimani, not Mr Al Assad, appeared among the fighters who broke the siege, and fighters were carrying the flag of the Iraqi Hizbollah Nujabah militia. Russia knows that as long as support for the rebels continue, it cannot achieve its immediate goal of securing the regime. And Moscow seems to have made a lot of progress on that front already.