US Deadlock in Syria and Kerry’s Project Moving Toward Conciliation

The achievement of “a historic peace” between the Israelis and Palestinians was the main objective of the mission launched by the U.S. Secretary of State ever since he took office. The wish to achieve peace coincided with a clear U.S. escalation regarding the establishment of a political solution in Syria. Today, the aspirations of a U.S. peace project have narrowed, with endeavors to thwart explosions in Jerusalem and the West Bank, whereas the Syrian front, despite all the U.S. escalation attempts, took on the necessity of consensus for a political solution, after the international priorities changed from a political transition to the fight against terrorism.

U.S. Secretary of State Kerry’s latest agendas show the volume of transformations in U.S. posture. Whereas his previous swift rounds specialized in one point —achieving a general framework for a comprehensive peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians — the agendas of today have changed to comprise a number of points, most importantly fighting terrorism, a political solution in Syria and attempts to thwart the fall into a state of security collapse in Jerusalem and the West Bank; to cut things short, it means that the Palestinian issue is only a simple part of the U.S. agenda and nothing more.

Many observers believe that the United States is paying the price of the “policy of denying the truth” which it employed in dealing with issues in the region, especially in Syria and Palestine. Inside U.S. circles, the belief prevailed that the current Palestinian administration is incapable of being a real partner in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, that there are horizontal and vertical schisms inside of Palestine and a complete failure to contain the situation inside of Palestine, not to mention the real exploitation of the authority as exercised by the Palestinian administration to eradicate political opponents of its president within Fatah and Hamas, and to assign a state of dictatorship which is sufficient to blow up the situation without the need of any external factors to emerge.

The same U.S. slip-ups fully apply to the issue of dealing with Syria; an unreal opposition invented by Washington, marketed as moderate and imposed on the international community in an endeavor to apply the U.S. viewpoint which doesn’t accept the truth, for things to end today with a U.S. announcement of a war on all factions belonging to this opposition, and we go back to ground zero in looking for a moderate opposition. The same thing applies to the issue of fighting terrorism, its suspension by Washington and the exclusion of Iran, Russia and Egypt, for Washington to end up ratifying the necessity of fighting terrorism and attempts to bring its opponents back to the scene as partners. This U.S. policy placed all of the countries in the region “friends and enemies” in front of real challenges, which made it necessary to adopt a state of flexible diplomacy which in its essence assumes the probability of failure in the U.S. approach and prepares to confront the repercussions of this failure and to circumvent its disastrous effects.