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BEIRUT, Lebanon — A growing number of Syrians on both sides of their country’s conflict, along with regional analysts and would-be mediators, are demanding new strategies to end the civil war, based on what they see as an inescapable new reality: President Bashar al-Assad is staying in office, at least for now
They say the insistence from the United States-backed opposition that Mr. Assad must go before peace talks can begin is outdated, failing to reflect the situation on the ground. Rather, they say, a deal to end or ease the violence must involve Mr. Assad and requires more energetic outreach to members of his government and security forces, with concrete proposals and reassurances that could bring compromise.
They also contend that the American-backed exile opposition coalition that remains at the center of Washington’s policy has little relevance and no respect from combatants on either side. These critics of American policy say that the United States and its coalition ally are helping guarantee that diplomacy remains paralyzed as Syrians die.
On Friday, the exile coalition declared it would not attend a meeting in Moscow that would have brought it together with Syrian government officials for the first time, albeit to focus narrowly on addressing Syria’s deepening humanitarian crisis. The sticking point: Moscow also invited Assad opponents who are more willing to compromise.
The critics say there is no indication that Mr. Assad is headed for imminent defeat; indeed, he seems to be increasing his grip on parts of the country. So they are reluctantly embracing a scaled-down goal of a transitional government that in the medium term includes Mr. Assad.
The best hope, they say, is to gradually blunt the violence in a Syria that will long remain divided among areas dominated by jihadist fighters, more-moderate elements of the opposition and a transitional government.
Changing course is urgent, the critics say, because as the prospects for the peace talks in Geneva recede, Syria is falling apart. In the north, extremist jihadist groups are terrorizing residents, clashing with rival rebels and establishing a base that poses threats beyond Syria’s borders. Hunger and disease are on the rise. Polio is resurgent. More than nine million Syrians have been displaced from their homes, the equivalent, by percentage of the population, of more than 100 million Americans on the move.
“There is a sense of surreality” to United States policy, said Ryan C. Crocker, a former ambassador to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan and now the dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. “ ‘Assad must go.’ Well, Assad isn’t going to go.”
Mr. Crocker and others say the current approach fails to capitalize on a growing center of Syrians exhausted by the war who have lost their enthusiasm for either side and fear that Syria is becoming a failed state.
Dozens of interviews with a broad spectrum of Syrians across the country bear out the growth of such a group, who often call themselves the “gray” middle. Many complain that no one represents them in what has become, like the Lebanese civil war that dragged on for 15 years, an international proxy war that extremists and profiteers on both sides have a vested interest in prolonging.
In interviews on opposite ends of West Beirut in recent days, two Syrians from opposite sides of the conflict — an antigovernment activist married to a rebel commander and a government supporter with ties to members of the security establishment — expressed similar feelings: a passionate love of Syria and a desire to end the destruction and killing.
They proposed opposite compromise solutions. The rebel’s wife said Mr. Assad could stay as long as the security forces were completely overhauled. The government supporter called for replacing Mr. Assad, but keeping the core of the military and security leadership in place.
Several people familiar with the official diplomacy say that Western diplomats have quietly met recently with one or two Syrian officials and government-connected figures, but have offered them little of substance.
“The best thing the West is offering Assad now is a cell in The Hague,” said Randa Slim, a research fellow at the New America Foundation and a scholar at the Middle East Institute, who is closely following official and unofficial efforts for dialogue, referring to the location of the International Criminal Court. But any deal, she said, “is bound to involve people with blood on their hands.”
“There are no saints in wars,” she continued.
While American officials have subtly modified their tone, saying Mr. Assad has “lost his legitimacy,” rather than demanding outright that he step down, analysts say the officials have not articulated a vision that acknowledges the tenacity of Mr. Assad’s government, the toothlessness of the exile coalition or Syrians’ growing misgivings over the ascendance of jihadist insurgents who have sought to impose religious rule on areas they control.
Multimedia
In a sign that the Obama administration’s strategy may be shifting, however, a spokeswoman for the exile opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, Bayan al-Khatib, said Wednesday that American officials had encouraged the coalition to attend, and that some members were considering it. They were apparently overruled.
Other quiet attempts are being made to set up unofficial talks, some with State Department backing. In one last month that did not involve the Americans, Abdullah al-Dardari, who was ousted from the Syrian government in 2011 and is now a United Nations official, held a meeting in Beirut of about 170 Syrians from opposing sides in the conflict.
The meeting, several participants said, included midlevel, technocratic government officials; religious and business figures; prominent members of the nonviolent opposition; and at least two rebel fighters from the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, one of whom boasted that he had shot down two helicopters. The official agenda was to discuss the eventual reconstruction of Syria, but the underlying goal was to seek common ground.
One participant described a coffee-break conversation between a woman who had been jailed for antigovernment political activities and a government supporter. Both considered their primary enemy to be the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a foreign-dominated jihadist organization.
The Assad supporter’s face brightened with surprise, the participant said, when the activist declared that given a choice between Mr. Assad’s government and the jihadists, she would choose the government — an increasingly common sentiment among civilian activists.
The government supporter who was interviewed in West Beirut, who speaks often to senior military and security figures, said some of them would be open to a future without Mr. Assad if a transitional government included “somebody they can accept” — they mentioned Rifaat al-Assad, a former military commander and exiled uncle of President Assad — and if it prevented the collapse of the security forces.
He said President Assad might be persuaded to preside over a transition and then decline to run for re-election, allowing him to claim that he saved Syria from jihadists and led it to democracy.
The wife of the rebel commander said that her husband’s fighters could accept Mr. Assad’s remaining for a while if other demands were met. She acknowledged they were among the insurgency’s most pragmatic figures and committed to pluralism. They are from Yabroud, an ethnically mixed town where civilian activists provide local services under rebel rule.
“The point is not Assad but the security system,” she said, adding that the exile coalition had lost touch with Syrian suffering. “If they want to help us, they should accept this solution.”
She said the United States should arrange talks and push for a confidence-building deal: a monthlong cease-fire in which rebels would stop shelling government positions in exchange for the release of political prisoners, especially women and children, and the delivery of humanitarian aid to blockaded areas.
To numerous analysts and Syrian centrists, the best-case outlook now is a transitional government that includes Mr. Assad and opposition figures, a gradual process of change that includes a new constitution and transparent elections, and agreement that he will eventually step down by declining to run for re-election.
“My view, which causes fear and loathing throughout Washington,” Mr. Crocker, the former ambassador, said, “is we really need to be making more of an effort to talk to regime people,” as well as to form direct contacts with insurgents and their supporters inside Syria.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/w...ssad-as-likely-to-stay.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0
Reality check for Rat supporters on this forum
They say the insistence from the United States-backed opposition that Mr. Assad must go before peace talks can begin is outdated, failing to reflect the situation on the ground. Rather, they say, a deal to end or ease the violence must involve Mr. Assad and requires more energetic outreach to members of his government and security forces, with concrete proposals and reassurances that could bring compromise.
They also contend that the American-backed exile opposition coalition that remains at the center of Washington’s policy has little relevance and no respect from combatants on either side. These critics of American policy say that the United States and its coalition ally are helping guarantee that diplomacy remains paralyzed as Syrians die.
On Friday, the exile coalition declared it would not attend a meeting in Moscow that would have brought it together with Syrian government officials for the first time, albeit to focus narrowly on addressing Syria’s deepening humanitarian crisis. The sticking point: Moscow also invited Assad opponents who are more willing to compromise.
The critics say there is no indication that Mr. Assad is headed for imminent defeat; indeed, he seems to be increasing his grip on parts of the country. So they are reluctantly embracing a scaled-down goal of a transitional government that in the medium term includes Mr. Assad.
The best hope, they say, is to gradually blunt the violence in a Syria that will long remain divided among areas dominated by jihadist fighters, more-moderate elements of the opposition and a transitional government.
Changing course is urgent, the critics say, because as the prospects for the peace talks in Geneva recede, Syria is falling apart. In the north, extremist jihadist groups are terrorizing residents, clashing with rival rebels and establishing a base that poses threats beyond Syria’s borders. Hunger and disease are on the rise. Polio is resurgent. More than nine million Syrians have been displaced from their homes, the equivalent, by percentage of the population, of more than 100 million Americans on the move.
“There is a sense of surreality” to United States policy, said Ryan C. Crocker, a former ambassador to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan and now the dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. “ ‘Assad must go.’ Well, Assad isn’t going to go.”
Mr. Crocker and others say the current approach fails to capitalize on a growing center of Syrians exhausted by the war who have lost their enthusiasm for either side and fear that Syria is becoming a failed state.
Dozens of interviews with a broad spectrum of Syrians across the country bear out the growth of such a group, who often call themselves the “gray” middle. Many complain that no one represents them in what has become, like the Lebanese civil war that dragged on for 15 years, an international proxy war that extremists and profiteers on both sides have a vested interest in prolonging.
In interviews on opposite ends of West Beirut in recent days, two Syrians from opposite sides of the conflict — an antigovernment activist married to a rebel commander and a government supporter with ties to members of the security establishment — expressed similar feelings: a passionate love of Syria and a desire to end the destruction and killing.
They proposed opposite compromise solutions. The rebel’s wife said Mr. Assad could stay as long as the security forces were completely overhauled. The government supporter called for replacing Mr. Assad, but keeping the core of the military and security leadership in place.
Several people familiar with the official diplomacy say that Western diplomats have quietly met recently with one or two Syrian officials and government-connected figures, but have offered them little of substance.
“The best thing the West is offering Assad now is a cell in The Hague,” said Randa Slim, a research fellow at the New America Foundation and a scholar at the Middle East Institute, who is closely following official and unofficial efforts for dialogue, referring to the location of the International Criminal Court. But any deal, she said, “is bound to involve people with blood on their hands.”
“There are no saints in wars,” she continued.
While American officials have subtly modified their tone, saying Mr. Assad has “lost his legitimacy,” rather than demanding outright that he step down, analysts say the officials have not articulated a vision that acknowledges the tenacity of Mr. Assad’s government, the toothlessness of the exile coalition or Syrians’ growing misgivings over the ascendance of jihadist insurgents who have sought to impose religious rule on areas they control.
Multimedia
In a sign that the Obama administration’s strategy may be shifting, however, a spokeswoman for the exile opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, Bayan al-Khatib, said Wednesday that American officials had encouraged the coalition to attend, and that some members were considering it. They were apparently overruled.
Other quiet attempts are being made to set up unofficial talks, some with State Department backing. In one last month that did not involve the Americans, Abdullah al-Dardari, who was ousted from the Syrian government in 2011 and is now a United Nations official, held a meeting in Beirut of about 170 Syrians from opposing sides in the conflict.
The meeting, several participants said, included midlevel, technocratic government officials; religious and business figures; prominent members of the nonviolent opposition; and at least two rebel fighters from the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, one of whom boasted that he had shot down two helicopters. The official agenda was to discuss the eventual reconstruction of Syria, but the underlying goal was to seek common ground.
One participant described a coffee-break conversation between a woman who had been jailed for antigovernment political activities and a government supporter. Both considered their primary enemy to be the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a foreign-dominated jihadist organization.
The Assad supporter’s face brightened with surprise, the participant said, when the activist declared that given a choice between Mr. Assad’s government and the jihadists, she would choose the government — an increasingly common sentiment among civilian activists.
The government supporter who was interviewed in West Beirut, who speaks often to senior military and security figures, said some of them would be open to a future without Mr. Assad if a transitional government included “somebody they can accept” — they mentioned Rifaat al-Assad, a former military commander and exiled uncle of President Assad — and if it prevented the collapse of the security forces.
He said President Assad might be persuaded to preside over a transition and then decline to run for re-election, allowing him to claim that he saved Syria from jihadists and led it to democracy.
The wife of the rebel commander said that her husband’s fighters could accept Mr. Assad’s remaining for a while if other demands were met. She acknowledged they were among the insurgency’s most pragmatic figures and committed to pluralism. They are from Yabroud, an ethnically mixed town where civilian activists provide local services under rebel rule.
“The point is not Assad but the security system,” she said, adding that the exile coalition had lost touch with Syrian suffering. “If they want to help us, they should accept this solution.”
She said the United States should arrange talks and push for a confidence-building deal: a monthlong cease-fire in which rebels would stop shelling government positions in exchange for the release of political prisoners, especially women and children, and the delivery of humanitarian aid to blockaded areas.
To numerous analysts and Syrian centrists, the best-case outlook now is a transitional government that includes Mr. Assad and opposition figures, a gradual process of change that includes a new constitution and transparent elections, and agreement that he will eventually step down by declining to run for re-election.
“My view, which causes fear and loathing throughout Washington,” Mr. Crocker, the former ambassador, said, “is we really need to be making more of an effort to talk to regime people,” as well as to form direct contacts with insurgents and their supporters inside Syria.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/w...ssad-as-likely-to-stay.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0
Reality check for Rat supporters on this forum
