Bashar Asad's Latest Statement.

The United Nations and the Western countries are hoping that the coming Geneva II peace conference would pave the way towards a political transition in Syria. Different evidences, however, show that not all the internal and external actors involved in this conflict, have the same expectation and perception in this matter. Among these, Bashar Asad's recent statement could be mentioned. Last night, the Syrian State TV aired the latest Bashar Asad's statement with regards to Geneva II Peace Conference. In this TV program, Asad was quoted as telling that:

"if we wanted to give up, we would have done so at the very beginning. We are on guard for our country. This issue is not up for discussion"(Dailystar, 2014).

Another example is the Islamic Regime's statement in this matter. Iran has repeatedly claimed that it will not attend the peace conference with precondition, which defines that Asad should leave the power in Syria. From this, we can assume that Iran's puppet "Hezbollah" would reject this precondition and consequently the coming peace conference as well. Given the fact that the Syrian authority, Iran and Hezbollah are the key actors in this conflict and these actors are strongly rejecting the precondition imposed by the West, what would be the possible outcome of Geneva II peace conference?

This brief information shows that there is zero-sum game condition between the key actors involved in this conflict. As such, we cannot have high expectation from Geneva II conference. This, however, does not mean the end of the world. We can attend the peace conference and achieve some positive common goals, which would are beneficial to some degree for at least most of the actors that are involved in this conflict. One of these goals would be implementation of a temporarily truce as a first step (later sustainable) between Asad's Regime and the Syrian opposition in the country. If we manage to make a reliable deal in this matter, we would be able to reach the further positive goal in this conflict. This goal would be defeating and dismantling the Jihadist groups in the country by the common help and assistance of Asad's Regime and the Syrian opposition. Should this happen, we would be able to move further and progressively with regards to finding a fundamental solution for the Syrian conflict step by step. Because the situation in Syria has become more complicated. In such a complex environment at this stage, we cannot suddenly jump into the final goal in this conference as the Secretary of State John Kerry wishes. Once again, I repeat my statement: without implementing these two main and primary tasks, we reach nothing with regards to the Syrian conflict.




M. Sirani                                 19.01.2014



Reference:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Jan-19/244518-assad-says-not-ready-to-give-up-power.ashx#axzz2qqe6gl9G