Lizard tail vertebrae and Arab problems
Arabs used to use a proverb about a lizard tail’s 21 vertebrae, that match the total number of the Arab league members after suspending Syria’s membership, whenever talking about unsolvable problems where parties get stubborn and raise endless secondary issues that reaching a solution becomes impossible. Facts show that most of our Arab countries’ problems nowadays have become more like lizard tails and can never be solved by conferences, meetings and optimistic statements.
Whenever peace is achieved in the chronic Palestinian problem and settlements get moved out of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, Israel will ask Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas more guarantees to exchange land for peace, which he cannot provide because Gaza is already out of his control and ruled by Hamas that always claims rejection to recognizing Israel and announces not wanting peace with it. Hamas also brags that it will not stop its ‘victorious wars and victories against Israel’ until all occupied lands are liberated.
Syrian-wise, the lizard complex lies in the fact that Assad’s regime is directly supported by Russia, Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah and indirectly supported by the West through the coalition air raids in northern Syria. In addition, the US fully backs the Iraqi government, which in turn supports Assad. On the other hand, the Syrian opposition is constantly talking about Assad stepping down without even suggesting an alternative. In fact, there is no one that minorities such as Kurds, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Ismailites, Shiites, liberals, secularists, communists, leftists and nationalists can trust.
In Yemen, the UN’s resolution number 2216 made under the seventh chapter urged the Houthis and Saleh’s troops to comply, while they insist on seven conditions to do so. They reject president Hadi’s return, leaving governorates and sanctions. No one even knows where Houthis and Saleh’s troops get their endless supply of heavy weaponry and ammunition despite the siege. Solving the lizard tail complex in Yemen may lie in the regime’s success in making allies with either Saleh or Houthis at the expense of the other.
In Libya, where the problem is supposed to be much easier without having any lizard tail complexes, it is becoming very complicated after various warring parties failed to reach solutions in conferences held in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Switzerland, and it was divided into three fighting statelets. This means that there is no return to the unified Libya and that Libya is doomed to be divided into 3, 6, 9 or even 12 statelets in view of its area and wealth. Days will prove me right! —Translated by Kuwait Times