It has been clear for several years that there are no good options in Syria. The Western invasion and occupation of Iraq and the bloody-mindedness of its post-occupation governments created the conditions for the emergence of Islamic State. Syria itself, or its remnants, is led by a mass murderer who has turned the Arab Spring into sectarian bloodshed on a population-wide scale. And the entire region is riven by proxy conflicts involving the US, Russia, Iran and the Gulf theocracies (which have provided vast amounts of funding to IS), while Turkey’s agenda has been driven more by its desire to crush Kurdish communities than to halt IS.
Any “solutions” will, accordingly, be difficult and of the “least worst” variety. The idea of allowing Assad to remain in power is gut-churning. Allowing the extension of Iranian influence in the region is a recipe for continuing sectarian instability. But with IS or IS-linked terrorist attacks on Russia, Hezbollah in Lebanon and now France, there is a clear international community of interest in helping establish a stable Syrian government that can in turn defeat IS and provide the basis for millions of Syrian refugees to return to what is left of their homes. (At the same time, Turkey must ensure its border is no longer a convenient transit point for foreign fighters, and the flow of cash to IS from our alleged allies in the Gulf states must be shut down.)
Achieving this will require some deeply unpalatable choices for more or less every participant in the process. But the alternative — massive foreign military intervention and occupation — has not merely been tried before and failed, it has delivered exactly the nightmare we are now facing.
Stop bombing and start talking..
Better half sense than the none Crikey has shown for the last couple of years parrotting the amerikan ‘Assad must Go!’ line.
And yet, and yet, despite coming into the light, your scribe (BK or Grundle, both of whom have a bad blind spot for the region?) cannot let go of the mudorc-lite “VI>Allowing the extension of Iranian influence in the region is a recipe for continuing sectarian instability.”.
If only the entire ME were like Syria, rather than Lebanon, with a mix of minorities and secular rubbing along without external destabilisation then Daesh et al would wither & die but as long as it is funded by Saudi & the Gulf states – with amerikan connivance – Paris, 7/7, Madrid etc will become part of the West’s future with, to paraphrase “… an acceptable level of domestic terrorism”.
Any word on bLIAR, Shrub & the Rodent receiving their invitations to the Hague yet? Oh look, porcus aviatrix.
To allow Assad to stay in place could hardly be best worst solution. What should happen is to remove both Assad and the Saudi autocratic – and murderous – dictatorship. A tripartite agreement between US, Russia and Iran should achieve peace and such agreement is entirely feasible.
While such an agreement would rob Isis of its principal backer, to really create any hope for Middle East peace, would also have to entail the breaking up the Yugoslavia look alikes of Syria and Iraq into its tribal components – the product of the French-British post WWI colonialist idiocy never had any survival chances – even under the direction of their current powerful friends. If the aim of giving Sunnis, Shias and Kurds their independence can be achieved, calm in this turbulent cauldron would be assured, for the one currently unmentioned yet vital player would also come to the party – ISRAEL, and Turkey would have no option but to agree.
Let’s hope they can keep the idiots away from the “Foreign Affairs Chemistry Kit”?
Congratulations, Bernard- some of us (and usually the ones with long experience of Syria) have been saying this since 2011.
The tragedy is that it’s taken this long for the USA and others to finally accept that their ‘Arab Spring’ mouthings about Syria were illusory; due to its culture and history, Syria was always going to respond differently.
These governments compounded this tragedy by several years of studiously looking the other way when certain commentators were pointing to the dangers of fundamentalist Islam being promoted from the Gulf States. Not to mention all the assurances that the invasion and occupation of Iraq would all work out fine …
More broadly, it calls into question both the quality and nature of advice that has gone to governments from the political/military /diplomatic establishment, and the level of public analysis, often from ex-members of this establishment. Why did they get it so wrong for so long? Why should we trust them to get it right next time?