Middle East Briefing: The Save-Syria Initiative Debated Among Opposition Groups/ Russians in Syria: What Should be done?

The Save-Syria Initiative Debated Among Opposition Groups
Samir Altaqi/Esam Aziz/Middle East Briefing/September 26/15
Special Report
Opposition groups are currently debating the principles included by a group of Syrian politicians in exile in their initiative published under the title: A Syrian-Syrian Dialogue. The initiative aims at placing the momentum around the crisis in its current phase within a context that preserves the integrity of Syrian territories, the structure of the State and the inclusive nature of the Syrian society along its history.

Here is the text of the proposal being debated:
Our Homeland Is In Danger
Syria, as a State and a homeland, is currently facing existential risks driven by conflicting international and regional agendas that blatantly disregard the Syrian national will. There is no faith remaining in achieving national salvation and building the desired State of citizenship. It is therefore dangerous for the Syrians to leave their homeland in the hands of foreign parties who seem to see partition on ethnic and sectarian grounds as the only solution. This approach is built on the false assumption that peaceful coexistence among Syrians is impossible. But the heart of the matter is that Syrians continue to see their country as one and only homeland for all its sects and ethnic communities where no differences are made between an Arab and a Kurd, a Sunni and an Alawite, or a Druze and a Christian. The utter indifference of most countries to the pain of the Syrians, their hopes and hardships.is a baffling reality These countries are even discounting the inevitable repercussions of a unified nation-state disintegrating while the undeniable reality is that this is leading to more bloodshed and protracted struggle, not to mention the objective impossibility of dividing the land.

For some countries, especially the USA and Iran, the Syrian cause has seemingly turned from an issue of a nation that strives to freely decide destiny , and rebuild its State based on a new national contract, peaceful coexistence and democratic rule, into an issue of terrorism that calls for adamant confrontation. Terrorism would never have succeeded in penetrating the Syrian society without a regime that terrorizes its people and relies on sectarian terrorist militias coming from Iran, Iraq or Lebanon and without the active contribution of the Iranian State in infiltrating terrorist organizations and its current attempts to transform the Kurdish security forces into an instrument for carrying out its agenda of hegemony.

There is every indication that Iran seeks to fragment Syria by relying on sectarian and ethnic communities that resort to terrorist practices but it has come to realize that imposing its hegemony over Syria through relying entirely on loyalty to the regime –and on these militias – was indeed, preposterous. We, Syrians are the sons and daughters of a single and unified nation-state; we are committed to salvaging our country and building a common life and future for ourselves and our children, as we believe that creating mini-states will never ensure peace and security for any of the parties concerned whether inside or outside Syria. We adhere to the international community’s objective of fighting terrorism – defined in international law as the indiscriminate killing of civilians and we are committed to fighting it in all its forms and figures,. Yet we believe it is unattainable as long as the terrorism of the dictatorship has not ended.

To be clear, there is no hope in rallying all Syrians around the common objective of fighting terrorism as long as there are no solid assurances, the most important of which include: freezing the frontlines, ending the use of barrel bombs, stopping the ethnic cleansing, preventing tampering with the map of Syria, as well as protecting the combatant opposition forces fighting in the Golan. Another important assurance is handing over areas which are under ISIS control today and are populated with a majority of Sunni Syrians, to the military forces of the National Opposition, provided that the Opposition immediately supports civil governance in those areas. This seems. However, unreachable in the new situation that followed Russia’s recent steps. The Russian bold escalation brought back the scenes on Afghanistan and made ISIL more popular and gave it additional momentum..
Yet the likelihood of any such arrangements succeeding has receded in light of the forceful intervention of Russia, a development that is sure to enhance the popularity of ISIS and is reminiscent of the Afghan conflict.

Keeping the regime or reproducing it in any form will only bring more disasters upon Syria and the Syrians and will kill any hope of a successful plan drawn by all Syrians to eradicate terrorism and eliminate all the flimsy pretexts used by all of the regime’s regional and international allies who attempt to defend it. The Assad regime has all but collapsed despite all attempts by Iran to resuscitate it with ever increasing efforts since 2012. It has not succeeded in allowing it to regain any of the areas it has lost. Our initiative is clear. It does not seek to address the regime, rather it aims to rid the State of its talons after it pledged it to Iran’s will. The blood of all Syrians, including Alawites, is exploited to serve the strategy of the Assad regime and its supporting forces and represents an existential crime against the future of Syria. They as much as the regime itself -if not more-shall be held as accountable for this crime.

We have every reason to believe that the regime and Iran are endeavoring to craft an Alawite enclave that will lead to nothing but the alienation of the Alawite community from its homeland, culture, language and Arab identity. Such a plan, if successful, will never produce any kind of peace, security, development or self-sustenance; if anything, it will pave the way for the division of the Land based on fear, and will result in ethnic, national and cliental mini-states..

A national dialogue bringing together all Syrians, with a view to draw a map of national salvation, is now of utmost importance if we are to put an end to the transformation of the regime’s constituency into militias controlled by outside patrons. This is imperative to prevent this incubator from turning into militias that are under the will of Iranian militias and other international willpowers. The Syrian dialog we aspire to attain is the cornerstone on which liberating the will of the Syrians from any foreign hegemony, should be constructed. Moreover, it is the way towards producing the joined national will that will carry us towards the desired national Syrian covenant we all aspire to achieve. The absence or procrastination of this measure will inevitably feed that malignant cancer into a disease that will take over the affairs of the country, especially since this cancer is nourished by the consecutive defeats of the regime on the ground.

Dispelling illusions:
Building the desired National Syrian State, based on the National covenant, will never be attained without being liberated from the prevailing illusions or before acknowledging the following true facts:
Past experiences, drawn from the previous years of the revolution, proved that salvation from without, or protecting the Syrian people by foreign actors, is nothing but illusion.
The Zero-solution the regime adopted to put out the revolution, or any other zero-solution, for that matter, is a mere historical absurdity.
All Iranian attempts to divide Syria have failed miserably after the regime’s contrived zero solution had failed. Although Iran did not succeed in imposing utter hegemony, its attempts to emit the ideology of fear among the Alawite sect might create a medium that leads towards division.
There are certain international attempts (which emerged from the conditions that produced social rifts) to verbalize a political formula aimed at impeding the establishment of the State- similar to what had happened in the Dayton Agreement imposed on the Bosnians because they failed at suggesting a nationally-based solution.

Initiative Perspectives:
The Initiative was launched from a concrete initial perspective which believes in the unity of Syrian territory, senses eminent danger and perceives the regime’s belief in a political solution as mere futile anticipation. Therefore, this initiative calls upon all vital powers in the regime’s incubator, from all ethnicities, sects and provinces, to take a step forward towards preserving the lives of whomever is left of the Syrian people, provided that this opportunity is open for discussing a plethora of different national issues.

This initiative sprang from the fact that as time progresses, the Syrian situation is staggering into further complications. Therefore, it aspires to build the bridges of mutual trust among Syrians and prepares for putting the Syrian cause on the track towards political solutions because the political solution in the current context of complexities has become a multi-phased pursuit; therefore, this initiative does not make reaching a solution a direct objective of the dialog it calls for, despite the fact that the launchers of this initiative wish that. All the issues mentioned by the Initiative as political solution procedures, are mentioned to illustrate the possibility of reaching a realistic political solution.

The Initiative is based on a fundamental prerequisite principle; the dialog has to be one between the Syrians themselves, where insightfulness of all parties should be sought when this insight is overlooked by most Arab and international efforts who strived to gather all stakeholders to launch a dialog that leads towards a political solution. A dialog at such level should be pure Syrian effort unprecedented by any Arab or international efforts since this requires a significant level of neutrality and incrementalism. It is principles like these that make the political solution a feasible one, and its road map, clear. No party can ever perceive national issues in the same way its nationals, can.
The terms of the initiative:
Hold a Syrian-Syrian dialog among political parties: the National Opposition on one hand, and the regime incubators, on the other. A dialog in which every Syrian commits to circling round one table hoping to dissipate all anxieties and regain lost trust.

Have a comprehensive National Syrian dialog for all Syrians, based on the results of the abovementioned, smaller-scale dialog which leads to building a new national and social covenant capable of drawing the features of the new National State and the bases of national reconciliation. This will pave the way for ensuring a secure future for every Syrian in every category in the Syrian society.

After the revolution was purposefully manipulated into a vicious war, and after it was deliberately coerced into a detrimental sectarian strife between the Sunnis and the Alawites, it is imperative that we look back on their historical compatibility when trying to build the new social covenant. This will impede any attempts to divide the land into sectarian and ethnic groups which will ultimately threaten the unity of the land, its sovereignty and decision, let alone undermining genuine developments on the level of the Syrian Homeland.
Both sides are required to put in place a set of security procedures to ensure a minimum level of stability in the form of freezing combat. Such procedures allow for the deployment of national forces all over the country, as per pre-determined agreements. If the international community decides to deploy peacekeeping forces or other forms of monitoring and supervision, it is not expected that their numbers, or indeed their designated tasks will rise up to the desired level. Therefore, they will not be adopted as an alternative to a Syrian-Syrian agreement. Thus, it is of key importance to have in place a plan that depends on a national force after reaching the desired historical agreement.

Reaching an agreement on forming an army and security forces is considered the backbone of any political solution. Restructuring them in a genuine and balanced way agreed upon by all parties, is the most realistic starting point towards addressing the concerns and apprehensions of all Syrians, all over the country. Subsequent to the state of fragmentation that Syria found itself in, where each district, or indeed, village, has become an independent entity that refuses to agree with its neighboring village even on the level of local administration, adopting a strategy of decentralization can be the formula that brings together all Syrian fragments, drawing the main lines of its new image which will dissipate the fears of the different Syrian categories, exorcising the ghost of division which some regional and international forces have been diligently pushing towards.

Preserving all State institutions and dealing with them as three different categories, as follows:
Institutions that will continue to function even after its corrupt head is cut off. These need to be nurtured and liberated from their corrupt head.
The deep-seated civil State institutions which can be used as instruments for controlling the country, the society and the vital resources; any national government can play their executive role. These also, need to be protected and fostered, after stripping them of any forms of corruption.
The parasitic institutions that act as the leeches that suck off the blood of the country and form the deep State of the tyrant regime. These need to be dismantled and replaced by national ones.
Finally, this Initiative is a sincere and honest internal Syrian cry, and a complete acknowledgement that it is a Syrian-owned initiative in all of its minutest details. It does not claim to be infallible and it believes that, at this critical stage, the power of the whole holds far more resonance than the power of content. We realize that this Initiative is a courageous and sagacious case in a turmoil of disagreements of the others over the future of Syria. We are a weary nation, exhausted by the investments and solutions of the others. If the intents of friends hold true, let them support us with whatever their friendships dictate. We have never been in more need of the sincerity of true friendship, than we are today.
The Syrian National Advisory Group
Dr. Badr Jamous- the Royal Institute for Human Resources Development.
Dr. Basma Qadamani – the Arab Reformation Initiative.
Dr. Samir al Taqi – Orient Research Center
Dr. Muaiyyad al Rashid – the Royal Institute for Human Resources Development.
Dr. Imad Eddine al Rashid – Outlook Center for Studies and Research.

Russians in Syria: What Should be done?
Samir Altaqi/Esam Aziz/Middle East Briefing/September 26/15

The introduction of a substantial Russian military presence into Syria pushes to the surface the suspended question of what kind of international order will emerge in this current critical period of world history. This question was delayed for over two decades. “Desert Storm” was a sign of an order that proved to be unsustainable. The Afghanistan and Iraq invasions were too mishandled and misconceived to make the results of the first Iraq war sustainable. The two wars reflected the extent to which Desert Storm was misread and misinterpreted. Moreover, the consequences of those two bad wars created such a negative impact that made any rational approach to establishing a balanced world order difficult to reach.

Yet, regardless of how history chose to go, the present is challenging everyone to find the proper conceptual framework to reintroduce a kind of manageable equilibrium into the global theatre. The prohibiting and rugged terrain of the Middle East is not only revealing to us all the extent of chaos in the global relations the way they are now, it is also providing the maximum test to strategists, academics, military experts and all interested to lift the debate from the current level of only Syria to a higher level, that of managing a world which seems to be crossing a violent storm in a boat without a Captain.

I guess what we are trying to say here is that the consequences of the frightening absence of an understandable and flexible world “system” are imposed on us spontaneously by the eruption of the Middle East regional crisis. This crisis answers back by calling upon us to look at that central issue of how to establish a kind of global collective rules to help navigate the current storm manifested forcefully in the Middle East. It is only empirical data that can lead us to form accurate abstractions, hence this debate has to start from Russia, Syria, the Iranians, the Arabs, sectarianism, etc. to reach general conclusions.

And in this case, the road splits into two propositions. One points to the need to work with Putin, Khamenei, Hassan Nasrallah and Assad to defeat ISIL. The other tends to ridicule this approach either out of convictions or of subjective political calculus. The distance between the two opposed propositions testifies to the utter lack of a conceptual framework that organizes the inter-relations between different strategies and policies. The “surprise” that followed Putin’s decision confirms that no one possessed an appreciation of the consequence of the absence of some general acceptable “rules” or a clear picture of the emerging trends in a rapidly changing global theatre.

The ghosts of the cold war should remain out of the debate completely. Also we should brush aside the ridiculously naïve argument that the Russians, Iranians and Hezbollah intervention in Syria is “only” aimed at fighting terrorism. Russia is not the USSR and the world now is different than that of the 70’s and 80’s. America now is neither that of Ronald Regan or Richard Nixon and the Arab World is profoundly different from what it was 30 or 40 years ago. Russia’s current decision was seemingly an extension of Moscow’s bold move in Crimea. Russia is telling us something that we seem to miss time and again: It will not shy from using its military force to reach its strategic goals. Now, it is the role of others to put their cards on the table. It is their turn to choose one of the two opposing propositions circulating around currently, either to stop the Russians or, as they say, if you can’t stop them join them.

Yet, the two choices are based on a false analytical predicate. For it should be asked first: Stop the Russians from doing what? Or Join them in doing what? In our issue of Middle East Briefing of May, 12 2014 we wrote an opinion recommending a “Grand Bargain in the Middle East Should Start after Iran’s deal”. At that time, there was no ISIL in Mosul and there was no Iran deal. Repeatedly, during that year, we tried desperately to show that it is extremely important to somehow put the Iran negotiations within a regional strategic context. We also proposed, even more frequently, a regional-international conference to try to manage the consequences of the deal or the regional conflict which was already getting out of control in a fast pace.

But this regional approach could not have caught the attention of anyone as long as even the larger one-the absence of a global order, did not. The absence of effective multilateral approach was not even detected by those who introduced themselves to the world as the champions of multilateralism-the Obama team. Obviously we failed. Yet, it seems the right moment to chart the road that combines the two opposed propositions of either stopping the Russians or joining them and shaping instead an alternative synthesis on a more meaningful and concrete path. We all know that the Russians will not succeed in defeating ISIL even if we assume that this is indeed their objective (We think that they prefer to keep Syria’s West Coast under theirs and Iran’s control and let the rest of Syria decay). Joining them by increasing the air raids would not help neither. Helping sink the Russians in Syria will lead to extremely dangerous proliferation of terrorism and extremism.

In any case, and regardless of the true intent of President Putin, there will be always a mission waiting to be accomplished-fighting and defeating ISIL through effective approaches and pacifying Syria and the Middle East. The unexpected impact of the Russian intervention might be manifested in the fact that all regional powers will be under pressure to think either to realistically deal with the Russian step or challenge it. The first implies questioning the validity of the zero sum conclusion they are hoping to achieve. The second implies another Afghanistan.

The helpful sign, if there would be any positive sides at all in the Russian move, is that Moscow’s effort could be integrated in an international-regional approach to reach some sort of a long term truce starting from Syria and then to the other explosive spots, many as they are, in the region. A UN frame to incorporate Russia’s intervention within a global-regional approach is indeed knocking on the doors of the current global moment. For the alternatives are so dangerous and ironic at the same time. Dangerous because it will further involve global powers quarreling in a game played on a mine field, and ironic because while the smoke is rising here and there, the moment it settles down a little we see the ugly face of ISIL stretching its tongue out to all of us.

In order to “rationalize” the step-that we believe was wrong-of Mr. Putin, a new context has to be opened where this step must be absorbed in a wider international-regional understanding of the necessity and urgency to reach a truce in Syria and the Middle East. Very distinctive and very clear rules have to be reached to define this context and the multilateral division of labor it requires and particularly Russia’s role. Regional and global powers should get together to find terms for regional de-escalation and concerted (real) efforts to defeat the forces of chaos in that region. This objective transcends the Russian objectives alone or the wish to see Moscow pays a price for its bold move. It even transcends the issue of defeating the terrorists. It reaches to the heart of the real problem which we have now: The absence of a global order. It sets the foundations for a future building of an international mechanism to safeguard global stability and peace, and above all human life. In other words, it may lead to a better global environment to help taking global cooperation one step further.

When we proposed the regional-international conference over a year ago, or more recently a kind of Helsinki accords-like arrangement in the Middle East, we did not see all this coming. There was a sense that things will get worse, but that worse? No. However, here we are now. The thread has to be picked by the international community to exert collective pressure on all relevant parties to get to a regional truce. While the international community will be doing the job, the job will give it many avenues in the way of establishing some new rules that should hopefully get an increasingly chaotic world to a more meaningful path. Europe, the US, Russia, the Arabs, the Iranians and everyone else have an interest in reaching that “norm”. The reason is simple: the fire scarcely reads border signs.

A conference is not a ceremony and cameras. It is a process. This process, in the specific case of the current Russian intervention in Syria, should avoid the easy and tempting willingness to make Putin pays, and should exclude casting the Russian step in any cold war terminology. In other words, Putin should not be applauded or encouraged to hang himself if he is seen doing that in Syria. The consequences of the extremely damaging step which he made there will have far reaching negative impact on everyone. It is not fun to see the ox in a china store if you care about the china.

What is really needed now is to use the moment when the ox entered the china store as a potential opportunity to reach an objective that transcends the current cry for more wars and more killing and more chaos and reach a phase of calm thinking about an international-regional frame, flexible enough and resilient enough to combine all these scattered elements and limit them to a defined diplomatic space where they can react with each other to reach the objective of de-conflicting a region on the brink of total collapse.

Briefly, what is needed is to explore potentials of incorporating the Russian shortsighted move into a more solid and defined framework to solving the Syrian crisis. As we see it here in Washington, there are some voices that find themselves inclined to refuse anything Russian, may be with the exception of Caviar and vodka, merely because they forget that the cold war is over or for whatever reason they have.

The difficulty for us was to explain that we first see the Russian move as stupid, but second we believe it could be developed in a not-very-stupid course.
The abbreviation of the current moment is coming in the form of an open invitation to set the foundation of a new global order. The Middle East is telling us that we cannot learn how to swim unless we start swimming. This new order may emerge from the current storm in that region in particular. It is an unforgiving “natural” conditions in which we should learn how to swim towards a new global norm. But we have to. It might be an opportunity, in spite of all the horrors, to establish a new norm that fits this period in our collective human history.