In his Senate testimony, McGurk cited the need to "find a mechanism to de-escalate and end the Syrian civil war, thereby allowing the moderate opposition to take charge of its own territory without threat of Assad's barrel bombs overhead or terrorists down the street."
But Kerry and other administration policymakers know very well that the vast majority of the Syrian opposition groups are not going to separate themselves from Nusra Front, so the idea of a "moderate" opposition with its own zone of control is a political fiction.
A key element in the new proposal is the demand that Russia agree to guarantee an end to all Assad regime air attacks against the "legitimate opposition." That is apparently being interpreted as imposing extreme limitations on operations by the Syrian air force.
Journalist Laura Rozen quotes "a diplomat involved in the international discussions on Syria" as saying, "Grounding the [Syrian] air force is possible; restricting its area of activity could be a possibility."
Any U.S.-Russian agreement on cooperation against Nusra Front would be clearly based on the premise that any new limitations on either Russian or Syrian airpower would come only after opposition groups have moved away from the Nusra-dominated areas and withdrawn from the Nusra-led military commands with which they have been affiliated.
After those groups failed to move away from Nusra Front troops this spring, Kerry's State Department did put pressure on their supply lines across the Turkish border. But Kerry and the State Department continued to blame Russia for failing to prevent the Syrian government from carrying out air attacks on targets in the Nusra Font zone.
Kerry, who is supporting Obama's proposal, according to Rogin's report, may still be hoping to use the proposed agreement to build a case that Russian and Syrian government intransigence -- not the continued U.S. complicity in Turkish-Saudi-Qatari strategy of backing the Nusra Front-Ahrar al Sham duo in the northeast -- is the reason why the "legitimate opposition" is still under air attack.
As the Obama administration goes into its final months, what appears to be the most promising path to an end to the Syrian civil war may yet be blocked by U.S. refusal to break with the policies of its regional allies who have been feeding the jihadist-led war for years.
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