America's Syrian misadventure is a blot on Obama's legacy

History will not judge American foreign policy kindly. In the Middle-East especially, the United States has proved a cynical and damaging interloper.

Last week's 17-nation agreement on "cessation of hostilities" in Syria is a ploy to halt the Russian-Syrian advance in provinces held by insurgent and terrorist groups opposed to the Syrian government.

Since 2011, the US and its western allies have made a concerted effort to replace Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The US has clandestinely provided arms and funds through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to insurgent groups fighting alongside the terrorist al-Nusra front. These groups project themselves as a credible political "opposition" to Assad.

The Syrian president has over the years proved a cruel dictator. Thousands of Syrians have died, some allegedly after chemical attacks. Many more have fled the country. But the insurgent groups Washington supports as his replacement could prove far worse.

The Syrian civil war, fuelled by western weapons and money, has devastated Syria. Nearly 2,50,000 Syrians, mostly civilians, have died in the fighting. Over 4.50 million have become refugees, in Turkey and elsewhere, including large numbers in Europe. Till a few months ago, the sectarian civil war was being won by the insurgent and terror groups opposed to Assad. His eviction seemed assured.

The entry of Russia into the conflict on September 30, 2015, changed everything. Moscow began bombing the al-Nusra front and other groups who were making rapid advances on Assad's exhausted government forces. Even Damascus, the Syrian capital, seemed vulnerable.

The tide turned a month ago following increased Russian aerial strikes on anti-Assad forces. Syrian government troops are now encircling Aleppo in the north, Syria's largest city and the opposition groups' stronghold. If the city falls and insurgent groups are cut off from their supply links on the Turkish border, removing Assad from power will be next to impossible.

That is why the US convened a 17-nation security conference in Munich on February 12-13, 2016, to seek a ceasefire. The clear objective: to stall the Russia-backed Syrian government's recapture of territory it has lost to US-backed opposition groups over the last year.  

The ploy won't work. While Russia is party to the "cessation of hostilities" agreement, it has not, and will not, stop bombing opposition-held positions. Assad too has vowed to fight on till all lost territory is regained, irrespective of the Munich agreement. Besides, the ceasefire agreement does not cover al-Nusra, the most powerful of the terrorist and insurgent groups fighting Assad.

The elephant in the room is of course the Islamic State (ISIS). The self-proclaimed caliphate has been weakened by sustained counter-attacks from Iraqi forces supported by Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah. While steadily losing territory in Syria and Iraq, however, ISIS is gaining ground in lawless Libya where it has exploited a dysfunctional government wracked by two factional groups vying for control of Tripoli.

So far ISIS hasn't seized control of any oilfields in Libya. But as the Syrian civil war drags on, the US and its allies, in their obsession to evict Assad, could end up giving ISIS a lifeline in Libya.

The consequences for the Middle-East and beyond would be catastrophic. Former President George W. Bush made a tragic error by invading Iraq and laying the ground for the rise of ISIS in the post-Saddam Hussein vacuum. President Barack Obama risks making another seminal error by removing Assad. If that happens, terrorist groups like al-Nusra will fill the vacuum in Syria as ISIS did in Iraq in 2012.

That fortunately is unlikely to happen following the Russian-Syrian offensive, despite the Munich conference ceasefire agreement.

Assad is an Alawite (a Shia-affiliated sect). Sunni Saudi Arabia and Turkey fear an Iran-Iraq-Syria axis that will challenge Sunni ascendancy in the Middle-East. They are threatening to send ground troops to counter the Syrian-Russian advance. But judging by the Saudi experience in Yemen (where, after nearly a year of fighting the Shia Houthi rebels, a stalemate persists), Saudi troops are unlikely to frighten the Russians or Assad's rejuvenated troops.

Sadly, President Obama's last year in office will be marked not just by a foreign policy failure in Syria and Libya. It will also be discredited by Washington's noxious attempt to destabilise another Middle-East country by indirectly supporting terror groups like al-Nusra and allowing ISIS time to regroup.

History will excoriate American foreign policy in the Middle-East, but President Obama's personal legacy will not escape untarnished.