Washington reconsiders Syria policy

Just as the Syrian tragedy entered its fifth year, promising breaking news from Washington emerged signifying change.

For years, Syrian President Bashar Assad has been declared by the US a leader who lost his legitimacy. Now, US Secretary of State John Kerry is clearly stating that there should be negotiations with Assad himself.

This is a big change that signals a variety of prospects.

Washington must have finally realised that a political settlement of the fast-aggravating Syrian predicament can only be achieved if the previous condition, that Assad should not be part of any future accommodation in Syria, is dropped. 

It may still be early to go that far in interpreting the American move, but there is good reason, actually more than one good reason, to believe it is a genuine policy about-turn.

The Syrian crisis has been mishandled from the beginning to the end. Its tragic consequences have reached unimaginable dimensions.

Figures are alarming. In four years, a mad war left more than 240,000 people dead, 12 million displaced or refugees living in inhuman conditions, two-thirds of the country out of the control of the state, dozens of cities and villages totally destroyed, collapsing infrastructure and economy stretched to the limit.

Early enough in the bloody conflict, it was realised that this war would never be settled militarily; only a political settlement was possible. And indeed, there were repeated diplomatic attempts that consumed few UN-Arab League mediators.

All failed because the outcomes of their missions were impractically determined beforehand. They all assumed that Assad would have to exit the scene first.

It is hard to deny that the uprising of the Syrian people about this time in 2011 was a genuine and a peaceful popular quest for freedom, power sharing and democratic reform.

The Syrian government did try to meet some of the people’s demands, half-heartedly, cosmetically and hardly convincingly, a process that, regardless, could have developed had the internal crisis been left for the Syrians to sort out on their own — a slim possibility though.

At the same time, Assad claimed that his country was under attack by armed foreign elements, by paid terrorists, whose goal was to destabilise and incite chaos.

Assad and his government claimed their duty, not just their right, to defend their country and their people against a foreign conspiracy.

This claim, widely dismissed initially as a dictator’s excuse to perpetuate oppression and crush a legitimate quest for liberation, soon became a self-fulfilled prophecy.

It was as if this ridiculed Syrian “excuse” was the appropriate hint for the many regional and international powers to pick up and to rush, quite aimlessly, with their rods to fish in the troubled Syrian waters.

Billions were instantly earmarked, and eventually spent, to indiscriminately recruit, train and arm thugs, murderers, terrorists, mercenaries, opportunists, zealots, extremists and freed prisoners, and to push them into the Syrian quagmire to wreak havoc in the name of supporting the uprising.

The inevitable result was disastrous and completely counterproductive.

On the one hand, the invading terror groups, who emerged with their weird agendas, left the genuine and purely peaceful Syrian uprising as their first casualty, pushing the real Syrian freedom seekers to total obscurity.

On the other hand, the legitimacy of Assad and his regime was indeed enhanced, rather than diminished, as any leader in his place would have to stand up to the challenge of foreign aggression and fight to save his country and to protect his people.

No matter how imperfect the Assad regime was, no matter how despotic and ruthless, would it have been right for him to walk away with his government and his army, surrendering his land and his people to an amalgam of paid murderers, terrorists and criminals? Would any responsible leader do that in the face of foreign invasion?

It is true that the devastation to which Syria and its great people have been subjected is unprecedented, cruel, unwarranted, unfair and totally in vain.

Many blame Assad for killing or scattering his people all around, as well as for destroying his country, but without realising that wars only do that.

A ruthless and a senseless war was imposed upon Syria when there was a pretext for intervention in the name of supporting an internal rebellion.

It is hard to understand why and for what purpose all that effort was mobilised, all the billions spent, as well as all the determination demonstrated to topple an existing Arab regime.

It is even harder to understand the stubborn pursuit of such a ruthless goal after what has befallen Syria and the whole area around it as a result.

We are all now reaping the bitter harvest of the madness that many contributed to in Syria, putting the stability and the very security not only of that suffering country but of the entire region at risk.

Daesh, and other similar formations are fast spreading in the Arab body, threatening our very existence, much like an aggressive cancer: a cancer that was deliberately caused.

It is time that the US raise the alarm. It is time to stop pouring more fuel on the fire that is burning the little left of Syria.

In choosing between a supposedly “bad” regime, but with possible stability and peace, or eternal war and chaos, there is no question that the former should be the right choice.

Syria should not be allowed to disintegrate. The Syrian people must be given the chance to rebuild their shattered lives away from fear and misery.

That can only happen if the land is freed from foreign intruders and if the real Syrian opposition factions are protected and later included in a balanced political structure that can embark on the difficult task of rebuilding a destroyed land.

The terrible outcomes of the bitter Syrian experiment are exploding in the face of all those who helped make it. They had better cut their losses, and indeed ours, and reconsider.

Let us hope we stand at the doorstep of change.