The airstrike that killed more than 60 Syrian army personnel and left more than 100 wounded last Saturday (17), and the subsequent USA Ambassador Samantha Power reaction over the UN Security Council meeting called by Russia, clearly shown the current disaster of the USA strategy towards the Syrian conflict.
After leaving the UNSC meeting without listening to her Russian colleague Vitaly Churkin comments, Ambassador Power held a press conference where, instead of explaining the reasons for the launching of the “accidental” airstrike, she carried out accusations against the Syrian Government, and its Russia’s current military support.
It is important to remember here that, the Syrian Government does not recognize the US-coalition military operations, what makes both the USA and Turkey military presence in the country illegal.
In an official statement, Russian Foreign Ministry stated: "The action of coalition pilots — if they, as we hope, were not taken on an order from Washington — are on the boundary between criminal negligence and connivance with Islamic State terrorists”.
Another strange aspect of the last Saturday airstrike was the timing. USA decided to launch a unilateral operation just one week after the agreement reached in Geneva between Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry, where both parties have determined the terms for a joint-ceasefire in the Region as well as the engagement on joint operations in order to solve the conflict in Syria.
The current state of affairs can clearly jeopardize the agreement and as the Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told BBC: "We don’t have any plan ‘B’. When we reach an agreement we say that’s it, this should be implemented. We have no plan ‘B’ or ‘C’. This is the only plan that is on the table and we call on everybody to implement what is written there," Bogdanov said when asked why the U.S. should trust Russia in the settlement in Syria.
Washington refusal, so far, to publish the terms of the agreement signed between Lavrov and Kerry can be another sign that USA cannot control anymore its rebel allies on Syrian ground. An open admission of something at this scale would be another huge defeat for Obama’s Administration. With the Presidential elections coming up in November, such admission would only benefit the Republican candidate Donald Trump candidature.
Strange, as well, is the complete silence from the European countries and the EU commission towards the last Saturday American strike. The same EU that extended its sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis on the last September 15th shows its double standards when does not issue any condemnation of a continuous direct interference of the USA in the affairs of a sovereign country that did not request its support.
Despite the American official position that the airstrike has been caused by an “accident”, even if this narrative is proven to be the truth, it denotes that the US-coalition does need urgently to engage in a more open instance towards the other parties involved in the conflict in order to avoid future similar mistakes.
With the ground presence of military personnel from Russia, Turkey and Syria any future non-coordinated operations, from any of the parties, will keep endangering the lives of the other parties and Washington has to acknowledge it.
As Russian officials already commented, there are no grounds for a “Plan B” in Syria so Washington needs urgently to comply with the agreement reached in Geneva or the consequences for Syrian population will keep being disastrous.