Syria: The US Mystery

The bloody and bitter conflict in Syria has been expected to be long-term because of the potential to forge alliances on the part of the regime and its opponents allow for it, and make the final results of this conflict implausible in the short term.

However, the issue that is worth pondering is that the regime, after all that has happened and will happen, will not be the same regime that has long enjoyed the smooth-as-silk popular compliance, the soft-line opposition and the regional definitively unresolved equation. The opposition will not be the same either, after all of the political and organizational failures it has been doomed to; because of its modest capabilities, it continues struggling in this manner after it has been proven definitely that regime will not change without the effective participation of international or regional parties. The Arab Spring lessons prove that.

I do not want to show the capacity of the regime in Syria here regarding its interior and alliance levels, as it suffices to say that it is a regime which has no lack of serious potential and influential allies. Also, regardless of the extent of the credibility of its resistance and refraining from negotiating a peace settlement with Israel, this factor alone would be capable of making any international or regional power think before proceeding with explicit steps that could change the equation on the ground, and open the door to uncalculated and unknown possibilities.

In such a situation, what is the possible, available and most likely way out?

For the foreseeable future, no one sees what the fate of Zine al Abidine Ben Ali, Mubarak and Gadhafi will be. Having seen Bashar al Assad, even the Yemeni experience, which differs to some extent, at least by President Saleh’s survival of the guillotine, is not the model to be adapted for Syria because of several political, social and cultural differences between the two countries and the two regimes.

So in that case…

So, in the case that we exclude the abstracts of the four scenarios that have formed the fresh heritage of what we call the Arab Spring, what can we expect and predict for Syria first, and then the whole region? After the matter in Syria gets resolved, will the environment be ripe for a new Middle East that could be more ready to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict?

If the regime in Syria does not change in the material and structural sense, then that same regime will be unable to help, but will change the policy and direction of the country. Therefore, it will be inevitable to live in harmony with the post-Arab Spring environment, where the balance has tilted in favor of political moderation concerning the relationship with America and Israel, without contradiction with militancy in internal affairs. Furthermore, the moderation that the emerging victorious political forces have disclosed at the time of the Arab Spring is stronger than a mere choice because it is in fact a condition of rule and survival.

Let us imagine an objective settlement between the regime and its allies, with some shadows on Iran, and between the opposition and its other Arab supporters.

The regime and its allies will be unable to shoulder the painful burdens on the Syrians’ lives left by the long and costly war. Who, then, funds Syria’s reluctance, its policy of twittering outside the flock and a development that could be virtually starting from scratch on the part of a regime fully besieged in the region?

By the way, Syria has never been in any other situation but this under the reign of both al Assad Sr. and Jr.; it has been required to show obedience to the U.S.’ rules, but it has claimed an adequate reward for that. The United States and the international powers have long been approaching the Syrian regime, at times only attempting to approach it, contain it and invest within it, and at other times flinching away to place the situation on the brink of explosion. Their approach has ranged between a sense of confidence in the regime, its alliances and its strange manners of influence making, and the feasibility of adopting the regime as an ally to the extent that Syria has become a mystery to the U.S. administration, hard to understand or even explain — so is the administration’s position on the Syrian crisis these days.

The course of the conflict in Syria still registers ambiguity regarding conclusions. Nothing is certain, and this has a unique political aspect: floating and dichotomy between language and behavior as related to the United States and the big decision makers that revolve in their orbit. This is because those who address the regime in Syria in strongly-worded language lack the skills to resolve. As to those who really possess these skills, they will not use them without insuring the results in advance at 100 percent because Syria is the key to the region's future, as well as what we might call the new Middle East. Also, because it used to provide a compulsory corridor through which crises, storms and changes moved into the rest of the area by virtue of its configuration and location, it remains mandatory as well as a conduit for any potential arrangement in the Middle East, especially in the post-Arab Spring era, which may well be some U.S. secret!