A ceasefire war criminals don't have to observe

The latest 'ceasefire' deal for Syria turns the the idea of peace on its head: no-one who signed up to it has to observe it, and nor do terrorists or war criminals

The Chinese version of the phrase “to call black white” is “to call a horse a deer” and it has political connotations. It comes from the legend of an emperor who tested the loyalty of his ministers by pointing to his horse and calling it a deer. If the minister corrected his master, he was obviously unreliable and had to be disposed of.

The world overnight welcomed the latest agreement to cease fire in Syria. Well, if this is a ceasefire deal, a horse is a deer. Even by the topsy-turvy diplomatic and military standards set by the war in the Syria, this “ceasefire” is Alice through the looking glass.

The ceasefire terms last night were agreed by a range of international powers that did not include any Syrians. That in itself might give us pause for thought. Then the one thing that none of those involved, in welcoming the deal they had struck, made clear was that it doesn’t apply to any of them. All the foreign actors currently participating in the war can carry on bombing away at will.

This is because, under the terms of a United Nations resolution passed by the security council last month which governs all these conversations, terrorist groups are excluded from any ceasefire. There is no obligation to stop fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the local al-Qaeda faction Jabhat al-Nusra, or other UN-designated terrorist groups.

On the face of it, this is reasonable enough - like most UN resolutions. We all want to get rid of these terrorists. But since all foreign intervention in Syria has been carried out under the pretext of fighting terrorism, all the international actors can therefore carry on bombing as before.

The United States says it is bombing Isil - with a few bombs reserved for a particular subset of al-Qaeda operating in non-Isil parts of Syria it regards as a threat to the West. Russia says it is bombing both Isil, al-Qaeda and other terrorists: but even if we take that at face value, it is an unfortunate fact that the al-Qaeda brigades it is targeting are in exactly the same parts of Syria as the non-terrorist “rebels” whose forces are being hammered by the regime.

Neither Russia nor the United States - or the other participants, including Britain - have given any indication they will halt air raids. Have you heard the Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, announce a suspension of that air campaign the House of Commons voted for in December? I thought not.

On the ground, Iran, the other major international player, also says it is “targeting terrorists”. It has Revolutionary Guard troops and a number of local and imported militias fighting for the Assad regime under its command in Syria. They are also fighting in areas where there happen to be Jabhat al-Nusra militants, as well as rebels, so there is no onus on them to cease fire either.

The regime, obviously, has all along said it is fighting terrorists and, as above, where it has major fronts against the “moderate rebels”, there are also Jabhat al-Nusra factions, sometimes fighting alongside them.

Isil and Jabhat al-Nusra are also specifically excluded from the terms of the ceasefire. It’s not that we want them to carry on fighting, but even the most hawkish negotiator would acknowledge the right of an enemy to carry on fighting if he has been excluded from the opportunity to make peace. (Not that they want to be included).

There are some groups, allied to Jabhat al-Nusra, whose status under this deal remains disputed, like the Islamist faction Ahrar al-Sham. So that leaves just one faction that everyone agrees is going to be obliged actually to cease fire under the terms of this deal: the “moderate rebels”. This means - and this is where it becomes truly surreal - that on the ground the only factions that have not been accused of carrying out mass war crimes on civilian populations in this conflict are the only factions that are now obliged to lay down their weapons.

At a practical level, this means that all the fronts fighting the regime and its allies in Syria will be taken over by Isil, al-Qaeda and their associated sub-groups. This is not, presumably, a desired outcome of western policy for the Middle East.

It is, however, a natural outcome of a particular aspect of American foreign policy. John Kerry, backed by President Obama, has pursued in the Middle East a pragmatic approach, that of “working with people who we can work with”. Mr Obama believes that you cannot force monsters to behave well; rather, you negotiate with people who are prepared to negotiate with you, and ignore everyone else in the hope that they will ultimately start to observe the international norms you are setting for them. It was this definition of moral leadership for which Mr Obama won his Nobel Peace Prize.

This was seen most clearly in the Iran deal. Mr Kerry was happy to work with the government led by Hassan Rouhani, the president, and teams of nuclear specialist negotiators. They are reasonable people and, what’s more, many had been educated in the West, and spoke America’s language, literally and metaphorically. The US, however, does not deal with other elements of the Iranian regime, such as the Revolutionary Guard, several of whose leaders the US has designated as terrorists and who are the people arming their followers with “Death to America” flags. This meant, for example, that the Iran deal could not be extended to issues like Syria, which is a diplomatic brief handled by the Revolutionary Guard.

The ceasefire deal is the end result of this. Its terms apply to the people Mr Kerry can “work with” - the internationally recognised opposition, and armed factions loyal to it. But the people America cannot work with - and America itself - can just carry on killing.

And carry on killing they will. This is not a ceasefire, it’s a deer.