It would also accelerate two shifts in US diplomacy: Washington would welcome Iran to the negotiating table over Syria, and it would no longer insist that Mr Assad step down immediately.In congressional testimony on Wednesday, Mr Kerry acknowledged there was no guarantee the “cessation of hostilities” would work, adding: “But I know this: If it doesn’t work, the potential is there that Syria will be utterly destroyed.Western officials said the Syrian leader’s days were numbered and predicted he would soon be forced to the negotiating table. President Barack Obama had made clear early on that he did not want Washington embroiled in a proxy war with Russia. Their supply routes from Turkey cut, rebels in the Aleppo area now say it may only be a matter of time before they are crushed altogether.At the United Nations General Assembly on September 28, the French announced their own first airstrikes in Syria.”For the rebels, the reality is bleak. And when the West did wake up to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions, it was short of ideas about how to respond.The next day Russia announced its strikes in Syria. There was no attempt to hide the voyages and on September 9 Reuters reported that Moscow had begun participating in military operations in Syria.By December, US officials had concluded that Russia had achieved its main goal of stabilising Mr Assad’s government and could maintain its operations in Syria for years.Diplomatic U-turnAt that point, the US pivoted to the negotiating table with Russia and Iran.Yet a senior US administration official said it took until mid-September for Western powers to fully recognise Russia’s intentions. Government forces have closed in on the city of Aleppo, a major symbol of the uprising. One of the final pieces of the puzzle was when Moscow deployed aircraft flown only by the Russian military, eliminating the possibility they were intended for Assad, the official said.US secretary of state John Kerry said on September 22 that Russian aircraft were in Syria to defend the Russians’ base - “force protection” in the view of US military experts.Today, US officials sound a far different note than in the early days of the uprising against Mr Assad when they said his exit must be immediate. Officials say they had few other options with Mr Obama unwilling to commit American ground troops to Syria, aside from small deployments of Special Operations forces, or provide US-backed Opposition fighters with anti-aircraft missiles.French President Francois Hollande summed up the mood among America’s European allies: “I would prefer the United States to be more active.“They defined zero hour for the Russian planes and equipment, and the Russian and Iranian crews,” he said.

A Russian Air Force colonel, who took part in preparations and provided fresh details of the build-up, said hundreds of Russian pilots and ground staff were selected for the Syria mission in mid-August.“Putin has taken the measure of the West.Their concerns, however, were disregarded by officials in the White House and those dealing with the Middle East because of a lack of hard intelligence, the former US official said. Warplanes famous car batteries sent to Syria included the Sukhoi-25 and Sukhoi-24 offensive aircraft, US officials said. Secret preparations were already underway for a major deployment of Russian and Iranian forces in support of MR Assad.Despite this public build-up, the West either played down the risks or failed to recognise them. France is hitting Daesh.Yet between October and December, American perceptions shifted, as reported by Reuters at the time.WarningsOne former US official, who was in government at the time, said that some US officials had begun voicing concern that Russia would intervene militarily in Syria two weeks before the bombing began.“That involved swallowing some pride, to be honest, in acknowledging that this process would go nowhere unless you got Russia and Iran at the table,” a US official said. Speaking to supporters in Damascus, he acknowledged his Army’s heavy losses..As in Ukraine in 2014, the West seemed helpless. The senior Middle Eastern official told Reuters that Gen. But since the United States has stepped back, who should take over, who should act ”SignpostsIn July last year, one of Iran’s top generals, Qassem Soleimani, went to Moscow on a visit that was widely reported..The military intervention, taking many in the West by surprise, would roll back rebel gains. The Russians, for now, are not doing anything,” foreign minister Laurent Fabius Fabius said at the time. Now, with the war entering its sixth year, they say they must push the diplomatic possibilities as far as possible and insist Mr Kerry is fully aware of what Russia is doing to change facts on the ground.It did not turn out that way.At the heart of the diplomacy shift — which essentially brought Washington closer to Moscow’s position — was a slow-footed realisation of the Russian military build-up in Syria and, ultimately, a refusal to intervene militarily.Russia began sending supply ships through the Bosphorus in August, Reuters reported at the time. Soleimani had also met Mr Putin twice several weeks before that.

He has basically concluded, I can push and push and push and push and I am never going to hit steel anywhere,” said Fred Hof, a former state department and Pentagon Syria expert now at the Atlantic Council think tank.Russia, Iran and Syria struck their agreement to deploy military forces in June, several weeks before Mr Assad’s July 26 speech, according to a senior official in the Middle East who was familiar with the details. “I think it’s indisputable that the Assad regime, with Russian military support, is probably in famous car batteries a safer position than it was,” a senior administration official said.“The international community is hitting Daesh (Islamic State).An earlier understanding of Russia’s military plans is unlikely to have changed US military policy.“We are heading toward being liquidated I think,” said a former official in a rebel group from the city.“There was this tendency to say, ‘We don’t know. The fact is that we need to make certain that we are exploring and exhausting every option of diplomatic resolution. Let’s see,’” recounted the former US official.(Photo: AFP)Last July, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad seemed to be losing his battle against rebel forces.A file picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) greeting his Syrian counterpart, Mr Bashar al-Assad, during the latter’s unannounced visit to Russia in October 2015.And Russian sources say large amounts of equipment, and hundreds of troops, were being dispatched over a series of weeks, making it hard to hide the pending operation.In Munich on February 12, Mr Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov announced an agreement for humanitarian access and a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria, far short of a ceasefire. In all, according to US officials, Russia by September 21 had 28 fixed-wing aircraft, 16 helicopters, advanced T-90 tanks and other armoured vehicles, artillery, anti-aircraft batteries and hundreds of marines at its base near Latakia