As it appears after one week full discussion, Geneva II peace conference has not been able to reach a substantial result by any means with regard to the current conflict in Syria. The only positive outcome of this conference up until this moment is that the both sides have agreed to seat around one table and talk to each other directly and sometimes indirectly through the UN special envoy Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi. Or the both sides have agreed with one minute silence for all the victims of the Syrian civil war in the beginning of the meeting, which took place today. These simple events might be defined as the ice breaks in Syrian talks by some top officials. But considering the large-scale negative consequences of this conflict in different terms, these achievements are, honestly, nothing to be proud of.
Considering the death tool of 130,000 people, 6.5 million internally displaced people and 2.5 million Syrian refugees, as the horrific results of this conflict so far, the Geneva II peace conference continues without any tangible, achievable and substantial result, while: the Syrian forces are continuing to killing the innocent people across the country with full cruelty; a group of internationally renowned war crimes prosecutors has recently published a report, which indicates that thousands of detainees have been tortured and murdered in Syrian government custody; the recently published satellite images show that many neighborhoods in Damascus and Hama have been totally wiped off the map by the Syrian forces; the Syrian regime has intentionally or unintentionally shipped out only less than 5 percent of its total chemical weapons arsenal, so far; and finally, Syria has become the safest haven for all Jihadist and terrorist groups around the world.
All details mentioned above indicate the fact that we are facing one of the worst horrific humanitarian crises of our time. This means, simply, that we might not be able to solve this conflict once and fundamentally at this stage, due to the different reasons, which are out of the scope of this short note (Those, who are interested on this matter, can read my essay titled: An assessment about the current Syrian civil war). But, we might at least be able to prevent the further destruction and escalation of this conflict in different terms by performing an urgent plan until the moment that the international community would be able to find a diplomatic and sustainable solution for this conflict. The plan is the deployment of the UN Peacekeeping forces into Syria at this stage.
This plan should not be identified or understood as a Humanitarian Intervention in the sense that we had observed in Libya under Gaddafi regime in 2011. The main tasks of the UN Peacekeeping forces in Syria would briefly be:
1- Performing, preserving and controlling the peace process between the Syrian regime and the oppositions.
2- Facilitating, controlling and observing the process of Syrian chemical weapons disarmament.
3- Defeating and combating different Jihadist and terrorist groups inside Syria.
4- Preventing and controlling the process of transferring of arms and weapons into Syria.
These tasks should be agreeable for almost all the internal and external actors involved in this conflict. Because all of them have been apparently, repeatedly and openly accusing the opposite side on these issues. For example, the Syrian, Iranian and Russian regimes claim that: there is a serious threat that the Jihadists would seize the power in Syria after Bashar Asad; other countries in the Middle East are giving money and weapons to the terrorists inside Syria; the Syrian regime cannot ship out its chemical weapons arsenal on time, due to the sabotages of the Syrian opposition; and these are the Syrian people, who should make a decision about Syria.
On the other side, the Syrian oppositions and their supporters (The West and Arab countries) claim:
They don't support the Jihadist and terrorist groups by all means; they don't have any connection at all with the terrorist groups inside Syria; they don't sabotage the chemical weapons disarmament process in Syria; and the future of Syria is something, which should be made by the Syrian people themselves.
As briefly illustrated above, the main goals of this plan should not have any incompatibility with the claims of almost all the external and internal actors of this conflict. This plan, however, might raise three important questions as follows. 1- Who would pay the cost of this massive operation? 2- Would Russia and China agree to adapt a resolution regarding this issue within the United Nation Security Council? And 3- What would be the possible reaction of the Syrian Regime (or ability of the Syrian Regime in both negative and positive ways in response to this plan) on this issue?
1- The Cost of this operation:
Undoubtedly, the cost of this operation is high particularly at this moment that we are experiencing a global economic downturn. However, this does not mean that we should ignore what is happening to millions of Syrian people inside the country and those millions Syrian refugees, who have fled Syria. We should bear in mind that the UN has begun to collect 6 billion dollars in order to meet the current basic needs of the Syrian people, while the Syrian conflict is still continuing. In other words, the UN is collecting the money, while the process of destruction of the country along with the new waves of the Syrian refugees and internally displacing the people is continuing inside Syria. To put it simply, this amount of money (if the UN managed to collect) will not meet the needs of the Syrian people in the future based on the large-scale impacts of this conflict in different terms. Thus, it would be beneficial for the UN to use this amount of money or part of that for implementation of a temporary truce in Syria. By doing this, the UN would be able to achieve a type of Damage Control with regard to further destruction and escalation of this conflict in different terms.
2- Would Russia and China agree with this plan?
Russia and China have repeatedly vetoed any resolution against the Syrian regime within the Security Council. However, as it appears, both Russia and China have been agreed with the details of Geneva I Peace Conference; the so-called Geneva Communique, which tries to establish a transitional government body with full executive powers consisted of both members of the present Syrian government and the opposition. In this respect, Russia and China should not be disagree with this plan, because this plan would not perform a Coup d'Etat against Asad's regime, as its details have been briefly mentioned above.
3- Would the Syrian regime agree with this plan?
Personally, I believe neither the Syrian regime nor the Iranian regime would agree with this plan, based on many reasons such as the violation of sovereignty of Syria, the fear that the Syrian regime would collapse following the implementation of this plan, the fear of the Iranian regime that would lose its geopolitical territory following this plan, the overall presence of members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah in Syria, etc. Do the Syrian and Iranian Regime have the power and ability to stop such a resolution within the Security Council? No.
In sum: I believe performing and implementing this plan might be plausible and achievable at this critical stage, due to the fact that both Russia and China have agreed with Geneva I Communique and the notion that this plan would not remove Bashar Asad from the power. However, by implementing and following this plan, we would at least be able to:
- establish a temporary peace in Syria
- provide the basic helps and assistances to those, who need
- prevent the further destruction and escalation of this conflict
- combat the large numbers of Jihadists inside Syria
- create a better environment for the further peace talks between the Syrian regime and the opposition
- ease the overall tension in Syria and different parts of the Middle East.
M. Sirani 30.01.2014
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