Is Syria Completely Hopeless?

The Geneva2 Syria peace talks have broken up without any agreement. Lakhdar Brahimi, the veteran Algerian mediator, nobly apologised to the different parties for his failure to broker a deal, but he really isn’t to blame. There are people entrenched in their political positions on both sides who would rather the slaughter continues than concede that they cannot win an outright victory. According to the Syrian Observatory, 140,00 Syrians have died since the popular uprising began in March 2011, half of them civilians. Millions of others have lost their home or been forced to seek sanctuary outside the country. This is putting a huge strain on neighbours such as Lebanon and Jordan, while meanwhile Syria’s infrastructure and heritage and being destroyed. As I said in an interview on an Iraqi TV channel the other day, there are no angels in this conflict. But something has to be done to bring it to a close. The outside backers of Bashir al-Assad’s regime (Russia, Iran, Hezbollah) as well as the Gulf States arming the rebels (Saudi Arabia, Qatar) need to come up with some workable, comprehensive plan. No-one should doubt the evilness of the Assad clique, who have been killing and torturing for 40 years whenever they felt their hold on power was under threat. But several of the rebel groups are deeply unpleasant as well. I don’t have a magic solution, though choking off all arms supplies to both sides would be a step in the right direction. And as the Syrian parties themselves have failed to agree to a deal, it is now up to the outside world to concoct one. We cannot just sit idly by and say, “Well, Syria is completely hopeless.” Hope is what Syrians need, and quickly.

Iran Invited to Geneva2. And the Kurds?

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, has announced that Iran has now been invited to attend the Geneva talks on the future of Syria, due to be held on Wednesday. That is welcome news, though it is a little odd that the significance was almost lost in the revelation that a whole host of other states have also been invited, including Bahrain, Luxembourg and the Vatican. Given the small size and, at least in some cases, marginal direct involvement of some of the likely participants, it is maybe not surprising that Syrian Kurds — many of whom have also risen up against the regime of Bashar al-Assad — are asking, why not them too? The quick answer from the UN would doubtless be that they are not a state, though some of the other Syrian actors who will be present do not represent a state either. But of course there is a more substantial matter involved, namely the position of Kurds in the whole region. Only in Iraq have Kurds gained a high degree of autonomy; in fact, it is not inconceivable that the Kurdistan Region of Iraq could become an independent country one day. The issue then is, which other areas in the region with a high percentage of Kurds among their population would like to try to become part of some putative Kurdish state? The Iranians stamp hard on any attempts at Kurdish separatism, and Turkey — which houses almost half of the region’s population of Kurds — strongly resists any attempt to undermine the territorial integrity of the Republic of Turkey. Moreover, Kurds in Turkey are themselves divided about how far they ought or ought not to be autonomous, let alone independent. But what is clear from even a cursory study of Middle Eastern history following the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire is that the Kurds were denied a proper opportunity for self-determination by the Allied Powers. And if Syrian Kurds are excluded from Geneva2 it will strike some Kurdish activists as yet more of the same.