Kerry talks while Aleppo burns

THE black smoke rising over eastern Aleppo is a mark of the desperation of its 300,000 besieged inhabitants. By setting old tyres on fire, they hope to conceal targets from Syrian government and Russian aircraft that are pounding them relentlessly. Food, water and medical supplies are running out; the few remaining hospitals are routinely attacked. Meanwhile, the Assad regime has opened “humanitarian corridors”. The aim is not to allow the passage of essential supplies, as the UN demands. Rather, it is to prepare the ground for a final assault on Syria’s biggest city by encouraging an exodus of its people.

It is against this appalling backdrop that America’s secretary of state, John Kerry, is trying to put together a deal with Russia that will supposedly boost the air campaign against Islamic State (IS) and the other big local terrorist outfit, Jabhat al-Nusra (JAN). Details of the proposed deal leaked out in mid-July, when Mr Kerry said he hoped to get an agreement tied down by early August. It involves the setting up in next-door Jordan of a “joint implementation group” (JIG) that will share intelligence and co-ordinate American and Russian air strikes against IS and against JAN in “designated areas”.

It aims also to curb the regime’s military air operations, particularly the bombing of civilians and attacks on the less extreme rebel groups that America supports. As a prelude to the establishment of the JIG, there would be a renewed commitment by all sides to revive the “cessation of hostilities” pact that was announced in February, but which has since frayed to irrelevance, and to resume the passage of UN-sponsored humanitarian aid to the most hard-pressed areas.

Mr Kerry’s capacity for pulling rabbits from hats should not be underestimated. But it is hard to see how he can enter into such an agreement with Russia while the ferocious assault on the rebel-held areas of Aleppo continues. Given that Bashar al-Assad’s regime believes that controlling Aleppo is key to its survival, it is equally hard to imagine either it or its Russian and Iranian allies pulling back now.

Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, worries about sharing intelligence with the Russians. He sees it, like the stalled Geneva peace process, as a form of displacement activity in which the Obama administration “pretends to have a policy, but is really just buying time and running down the clock”. Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute, another think-tank, fears that in its present form the deal might do more harm than good. He points out that it does nothing to limit the regime’s use of artillery, by far its most devastating weapon.

It is not clear where the Americans would and would not work with the Russians against JAN. As one of the largest rebel militias, JAN intermingles with less extreme groups. Two weeks after the details of the plan emerged, JAN announced that it was ending its affiliation with al-Qaeda and renaming itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, in order to “protect the Syrian revolution”.

The rebranding does not alter the group’s Salafi-jihadist ideology and indeed al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, appears to have given it his blessing. However, it does remove a major obstacle to the unification of Syria’s armed opposition (still excluding IS). As The Economist went to press, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham was fighting alongside other rebel groups in a bid to break the siege of Aleppo. America is unlikely to want to help the Russians do anything to hamper that.

Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC praises Mr Kerry for effort. But he says the agreement is flawed because “we have no leverage and we are negotiating with someone who is not a friend.” Mr Tabler says Russia knows what it wants—a national unity government led by Mr Assad—but America does not. “The White House,” he says, “is retreating faster than the other side can advance.”