Establishing a regime that fits Assad

The last statement by the U.N. special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura in which he held Assad regime responsible for derailing Geneva peace talks is not adequate with the serious developments and the barbarity of the criminals committed by Assad regime. De Mistura’s statements are less than what is expected from the envoy of the international organization. The Arab governments are alike. No real attitudes towards the sectarian cleansing and demographic change that are targeting hundreds of thousands of Syrians. 

De Mistura’s statement will not certainly soften the shock of the international attempt to keep Assad for two years thus timing the political solution to fit the end of Assad’s presidency in 2018 since taking that into account will abolish consequently any need for negotiation. 

Assad is a war criminal who should be tried for committing the worst genocide in modern history but not to be rewarded by keeping him as a president under the U.N. flag. 

The U.N. and other international mediators immersed Syrians with a series of false promises since the start of the Syrian crisis. In 2013, Syrians were told to wait for one year till Assad finished his term but when it ended he ran again for presidency and won in false elections to continue his campaign of killing and destruction. The negotiation plan aims at making Assad stay in power until 2018 in other words, the time of new presidential elections. 

Nobody still remembers the old lies since they have become so many. For example, the opposition was told to accept the principle of “keeping the regime” in order to adopt Assad’s ousting plan. Doing this will make avoid the Iraqi scenario when the whole state collapsed and chaos prevailed. The Syrian opposition accepted the plan and announced that it is ready to be part with a regime’s government but without Assad. Then they were told to negotiate with the Russians because they are the most influential part which can contribute to ending the crisis and settling a political solution but when the opposition went to Moscow they heard threats only.

When the U.S government declared its war on ISIS the Syrian opposition was asked by the Americans to join the military campaign. The opposition accepted but the Americans did nothing to the Russian airstrikes and the Iranian intervention in return. 

This chain of lies will increase the human suffering and help the spread of terrorism which grows amid chaos, uncertainty and anger. 

However, politicians make a grave mistake when they deal with the Syrian crisis as an offshoot of complicated disputes in the Middle East. The case in Syria is independent. It is not part of an Iranian- Arab conflict or Sunni- Shiite one. Nor it is part of a Russian- American competition but this assumption doesn’t deny that Syria has become a battlefield for different and complicated conflicts. The roots of the Syrian crisis are very local ones and it should be dealt with depending on the real causes that have created it. 

Abdulrahman al-Rashid in Asharaq Al-Awast 

Translated from Arabic by Orient Net English