Annan’s way the only way to end Syria’s woes
Much has been said about the similarities between the chaos in Syria and the Balkan wars of the 1990s. But, while the prolonged killing may indeed be reminiscent, the political and diplomatic effort that finally ended the war in Bosnia is not.
To date, there has been nothing similar to the Contact Group plan hammered out in the summer of 1994 by representatives from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, and implemented in 1995 in Dayton, Ohio. In Syria, the only diplomatic process is in the hands of the courageous, if beleaguered, former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, who has understood better than many analysts that any lasting political settlement must not be a triumph of one side or the other.
No one can watch the continuing violence in Syria without a sense of horror at the armed attacks on largely unarmed civilians, overwhelmingly by groups that support President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Syria already is in a state of civil war, one whose battle lines were drawn months ago.
On one side is Assad’s minority Alawite tribe, which through the years has attracted secular Sunnis to share in the spoils of a oneparty, authoritarian state. But Assad’s coalition is broader than that, which helps to explain his hold on power.
Syria’s Christians, many of its 1.5 million Kurds, and even secular classes in Damascus have been disinclined to join what is widely perceived in the country, though not by the rest of the world, as a sectarian Sunni opposition.
The civil war in Syria has much broader ramifications, which could lead to a wider regional conflict. Given this looming threat, it is becoming clear that staying out of the Syrian mess may not be an acceptable choice.
Ominously, the conflict looks increasingly like a proxy war between Iran and the Sunni Arab states, which regard their own minority Shia populations as a potential Iranian fifth column. Iran has sought to maintain its influence by providing material support to Assad. By contrast, many Sunni Arab states have provided varying degrees of support to the largely Sunni opposition. Russia and China, bruised by their loss of face in the Nato-led intervention in Libya last year, have sought to keep the international community out of Syria. Both fear intervention could harm their interests in Syria.
In the absence of concerted international action, the US and Europe have largely weighed in with vocal condemnation of Assad and his henchmen. They have also highlighted the loss of life in an effort to shame Russia into adopting a more amenable position.
But denouncing Assad or Russia is unlikely to produce any effect except to assure domestic audiences that the West is on the side of the angels. Likewise, proclaimed support for disparate, barely known rebel groups; demands for dead-on-arrival sanctions resolutions; feckless calls for Assad’s departure (as if he plans to take the advice); and half-baked ideas about enforced ‘‘safe areas’’ (an utter failure in Bosnia) are unlikely to spare lives, much less bring about the endgame so desperately needed.
What is really needed are serious and sustained negotiations among interested international powers (let’s call them a ‘‘contact group’’) on a viable political outcome. A ‘‘Contact Group Plan’’ should be carefully worked out with Annan and his team. Most importantly, all of the plan’s stakeholders then need to support Annan, publicly and privately. Publicly declaring support for Annan’s ceasefire plan, then whispering to journalists that it is ‘‘in tatters,’’ as has happened repeatedly in recent weeks, will not get the job done. Clearly, a new way forward is needed, and a good start would be a political/ diplomatic plan that Annan could sell to the parties. In the Balkans, it was a US team that finally sold the Contact Group Plan to the parties directly involved.
We didn’t succeed because we were geniuses. We succeeded because we had tremendous support from every country that wanted to see the horrific conflict in Bosnia brought to an end.