Restoring peace and normality in blood-soaked Syria is critical to stabilizing the Middle-East and securing the region’s future after six years of intense fratricidal conflict that have extracted a heavy toll on the country’s inherently secular fabric.
The vexing tug-of-war over who controls this strategically crucial nation – one that also represents the last vestige of Russia’s Middle-East presence – has led to a vertical split in Syria’s polity. As Gokhan Bacik, an eminent Turkey-Syria expert observes, trust between various ethnic groups is at its nadir in Syria today.
In this context, the recently-held talks in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, assume great significance – especially given that previous UN-sponsored peace talks have consistently collapsed.
Crucially, Russia, supported by Turkey and Iran, is now determined to work out an acceptable political settlement to Syria’s protracted civil war in collaboration with other major world players led by America.
While the Astana talks did not produce any major breakthrough – the Syrian government and opposition delegations avoiding direct discussions – a realization has dawned, as reflected in the final statement, that there can be no military solution to the Syrian issue.
The crucial point is that, with up to 60 different armed factions being involved in the civil war, most of them operating as proxies for the geostrategic interests of others, even agreeing on a peace framework isn’t child’s play.
The United States has to date been apprehensive of Russia’s intentions, notwithstanding President Donald Trump’s broad hint about abandoning a regime change agenda in Syria to work closely with Moscow in the matter of confronting Islamic State and other terrorist actors.
A Russia expert at America’s Foreign Policy Council, Stephen Blank likens the Moscow-backed peace initiative to a “nineteenth century imperial division of Syria into Iranian, Turkish and Russian spheres of influence.”
Blank predicts a shared protectorate status for Syria in the coming days, with Russia retaining its leverage over oil and other selected economic sectors.
Alexander Kuznetsov, a renowned Russian Middle-East expert and Deputy Director of the Moscow-based Institute of Forecasting and Resolving Political Conflicts disagrees, however. “Russia has never been an aggressive colonial power in the Middle-East.”
“It is necessary to preserve Syria’s unity. But Kurdish inhabited regions and Raqqa province may not be fully integrated into Syria for a long time”
For his part, Bacik asserts that “it is not realistic to expect a restoration of united Syria as it used to be before the war. The best likely scenario is a federal State where each group is given some kind of autonomy.” He acknowledges, however, that breaking Syria up into statelets in order to separate competing factions would be a near impossibility.
Kuznetsov concurs, and holds out hope for a secular, democratic and united Syria. “It is necessary to preserve Syria’s unity. But Kurdish inhabited regions and Raqqa province may not be fully integrated into Syria for a long time,” he says.
He advocates a Lebanon-type agreement that allows for a multi-party system, one where the highest constitutional post is reserved for the majority faction but power-sharing guarantees for minorities are locked in.
Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a Middle-East security specialist and Iran’s nuclear negotiator, offers a five-point solution: “Preservation of Syrian unity; sovereignty and rights of minorities; preventing the collapse of the military and security establishment; a power-sharing coalition to run Syria; respecting the will of majority and their right to choose their constitutional leadership through a UN-supervised free election.”
And if mixed messages (along with reinforcements in arms, food, salaries, and religious fervor) are not sent, the peace would have happened a long time ago. For as long as external factors are supporting the newly enshrined human right of anyone to pick up arms, and be called "the opposition"– peace will be hard to achieve. And while it may be dawning on everyone that there is no military solution, I would argue it differently. There is only a peacefull solution available, when one side realizes that it CANNOT WIN. Then, the side with the upper hand must be generous, and pretend a bit of feebleness, while the other side will bluster and brag, to cover the fact that there is no hope. So, in fact, it is true, there is no military solution to determine the end-game. Both have to be gratefull for the opportunity. But any hint on behalf of any external source giving support to "the opposition" — may encourage them to hold out for a better deal. Those on the outside, whose families are safe from headchopping religious cults, must think long and hard about their decisions. And encourage everyone to give up hope of imposing onto others their will with impunity. Russia has done this with Syria’s government on number of occassions. Every time they had a major victory, they offered an olive branch and a chance for reconciliation. There are many societies that went through civil wars. And managed to overcome the divisions.
But in Syria, there is an addtional hope. The majority of Syrians live in large cities, and those cities have been for a long time in many ways pluralistic and some quite westernized. Urban Sunnis are the most educated core of the population, with a remarkable integration of women in the society, from education, to career choices, or personal choices of clothes or selecting a partner in life. This is true of Christians, as well as urban Shia. But since Sunnis are the majority, as well as the wealthiest strata of the society, they have been the strenght behind Assad Government and military. While Shia and Christians had no illusions about the Saudi sponsored Salafi cults, it is the urban Sunnis that are the fulcrum of the state. They have most to lose with Salafi cults taking over the country. it was the idiocy of the Western style primiive analysis that assumed that all Sunni would stick togother and dump Shia president and Shia presence in the government and military. And when the urban business elite Sunnis did not want to go along with the dreams of Salafi-led Sunni land, the fury of the empirial dumbells was astounding. They could not understand why would all religious authorities in Damascus support the government and the military.
It is because the prospect of living under Saudi style regime was not acceptable to Syrians. Where did Salafi cults take hold the most? They took hold in over one million strong Iraqis that live in Syria as refugees following the fall of Saddam Hussein. It is this exodus of Sunnis into Syria that caused an economic hardship on Syria, and refugees lived a very, very difficult life. UN was of no help, unfortunately, as if it was important to keep under wraps just how many people fled Iraq following US invasion. Those people received with gratitude Saudi food, mosques, help to poor, some rudimentary education — and Salafi indoctrination. The cults started forming throughout Syria, takiig in many Syrian Sunni poor from the countryside. And the one and only guilty party to their mistery was — Assad regime. As he is "not a Moslem", the country was paying the price. From the religious and political conversion to Salafi cuts, one small step remained — armed rebellion.
On the ohter hand, CIA and others were importing Al-Qaeda operatives that took over region close to Turkish border, and part of Aleppo. From there, they started to push into Latakia. Russian intervention prevented the collapse of Syrian army, pushed on two major fronts — between the spreading Salafi cults, later constituted as ISIS, and the agressive Al-Nusra, with experienced foreign fighers and foreign advisers. The liberation of Aleppo flushed them out, along with the resident advisors from six countries — all names given to UN Security Council in open session.
With Al-Nusra failing, ISIS is a menace to everyone, including sponsors, so it will be sacrificed. But the variety of Salafi groups that remained in various pockets, with Al-Nusra providing arms, are now at the negotiating table. Hundreds more have already laid down arms under the provisions of amnesty. Saudi project of Syria takeover via Salafi cults is now a failure. The rest is merely sorting out through the debree of entirely unnecessary tragedy.
What a chaos….
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A ‘military’ solution is possible, but neither the Syrian government (which was offering amnesty in exchange for the release of hostages before Russia or Iran intervened) the Iranians, or the Russians want that.
And, while the idea of someone (the letters U, S, and A spring to mind, maybe politely disguised by the addition of D and I) ‘bribing’ the Russians with Syria’s oil and guarantees of a perpetual militay base isn’t that radical of a notion, doubt if Russia would bite.
The solution is almost certainly to end up being a reversion of the status quo before the extremists were bolstered by a flood of foreign mercenaries and other foreign aid, Syria evolving further into a Syrian style (which means whatever the Syrians think will work best) democracy. Will it be easy or quick? No, the Idlib region will remain a ‘rebel’ stronghold, at least until the incompetency, corruption, extremism, and intolerance of the ‘rebel’ groups becomes too much for the population there to tolerate, at which point it’ll become the Texas/Montana of Syria.
Libya and Syria were two well-governed country. Their populations were not very rich but they were living well and in peace. Peace left the two countries when USA, the most terrible terrorist country of the twenty first century invaded and bombed them. Not only did the bombs kill hundreds of thousands Libyans and Syrians, but they also created a number of displace people, destroyed the lives of the rest of the population and destroyed also tens of billions of dollars of infrastructures. Now, the ravaged countries have to piece back together. It will need several decades before they will reach the same level as before the invasion and bombings by the Americans.