During one of the Iftar gatherings in Ramadan 2011 (August), at Dr. Nabil el-Arabi’s house, Secretary-General of the Arab League in Cairo, a draft of the (The Arab Initiative) was written by a member of the (National Coordination Body). The initiative was adopted by the Arab League on November 2, 2011. The idea behind the initiative was based on the existence of a balanced impasse that neither side of the Syrian conflict could break. The conflict had become more than internal; it turned into a regional issue, then an international one, with cross-border organizations intervening\u2014some supporting the regime and others supporting the armed opposition. The best solution for the Syrian crisis, which had evolved into a (conflict in Syria) and a (conflict over Syria), was to establish a transitional governing body that includes both authority and opposition, with extensive executive powers, to lead the country from the current regime to a new system through elections supervised internationally and regionally. This idea\u2014of a transitional authority that includes both power and opposition with full executive powers\u2014became the core of the Geneva statment (June 30, 2012), after the failure to Arabize the Syrian crisis. This failure signified the recognition of a balanced impasse, marking the beginning of the internationalization of the Syrian crisis by the Americans and Russians through the Geneva statement.<\/p>\n
Since Fall 2011, Bashar al-Assad, Riyad al-Shqifa (General Supervisor of the Muslim Brotherhood), Riyad Turk, Riyad al-Asaad (leader of the so-called Free Syrian Army), Ali Khamenei, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan met to reject the idea of a transitional settlement. They were later joined by (Jabhat al-Nusra), (Ahrar al-Sham), and other armed Islamist factions in this rejection.<\/p>\n
In August 2011, there were about five thousand Syrian casualties in the conflict from both sides. By March 5, 2020, when the armed conflict was settled in Moscow between Putin and Erdogan, the number of Syrian dead had reached half a million, with seven million internally displaced persons and seven million refugees. With ceasefires and fighting pauses that cooled and stabilized, the conflict was only broken during the period from November 27, 2024, to December 8, 2024. This was not due to internal Syrian dynamics but primarily external, driven by American factors, influenced by the Ukraine war that distracted Russia from Syria since 2022, and the defeat of Iran\u2019s proxies in Gaza and Lebanon after October 7, 2023. And the US view that the regional Iranian axis could only be decisively challenged by closing the Syrian-Iraqi-Lebanese-Palestinian corridor.<\/p>\n
Many believed that the idea of a Syrian transitional settlement had been shelved after the fall of Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime, and that UN Resolution 2254, based on the Geneva statement, had died. However, over the past nine months, they realized that the Syrian crisis was still ongoing, characterized by a balanced impasse that neither side could break\u2014albeit now in more intense and complex forms than before, regionally, internationally, and domestically. The alliances and trenches have changed, with some players withdrawn from the Syrian arena, such as Iran, Hezbollah, and the cross-border Shiite militias. Meanwhile, Russia has become weaker than before December 8, 2024. There is also the US-Turkish consensus more than the US-Israeli consensus on Syria post-Bashar al-Assad, with recent Israeli movements in Syria over the past nine months indicating Israeli concern and unease about the new Syrian situation. Comparing this, it appears that Israel was quite comfortable with Bashar al-Assad and, certainly, with his father as well. This likely explains why Israel opposed the American plan in 2024 to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, as evidenced by its destruction of the Syrian army days after the regime\u2019s fall and its subsequent counter-moves against the new Syrian authority. Netanyahu in 2011 was the main force behind preventing Obama\u2019s statement on \u201cthe departure of Assad\u201d on August 18 of that year.<\/p>\n
On August 10, the UN Security Council named the new Syrian authority as \u201cthe Provisional\u201d authority, not \u201ctransitional,\u201d and called for a Syrian transition through the implementation of Resolution 2254. This indicates that the international community (led by the US backing the new Syrian authority) has excluded the \u201cConstitutional Declaration\u201d issued by the new Syrian authority on March 13, which announced its intention to draw a roadmap for the transitional phase.<\/p>\n
Currently, analyzing the Syrian landscape: the new Syrian authority controls an area roughly equal to what Bashar al-Assad controlled as of November 26, 2024. The eastern Euphrates region is restricted from military decisive action due to US will and the negotiations between Ocalan and Erdogan. Israeli restrictions also prevent military decisive action in the Suwayda governorate, as openly evident in last July.<\/p>\n
In such a context, there are scenarios like the Libyan one, where since 2014, parts of Libya’s geography have been divided and controlled by de facto authorities lacking national consensus. When Khalifa Haftar attempted to seize control of western Libya in 2019, he failed due to American-Turkish opposition. The government of Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh is now embroiled in power struggles not only over western Libya\u2014with various militias\u2014but even over neighborhoods within the capital, Tripoli.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, there is the Spanish scenario of 1975\u20131977, when, within two years of the death of General Franco\u2014who had ruled with an iron fist since 1939 after defeating leftist Republicans in the Spanish Civil War\u2014a political transition took place toward a democratic system through an agreement among political parties. Franco, who was one of the staunchest opponents of political party pluralism\u2014much like some Syrians today\u2014was succeeded by a process that led to elections and the establishment of a democratic parliamentary system. This transformation turned Spain into a stable country for the past half-century, following a civil war (1936\u20131939) that had claimed millions of lives and displaced millions more.<\/p>\n
Most likely, the term (General National Conference) refers to what the UN Security Council communique calls for\u2014a comprehensive and inclusive political transition through the implementation of Resolution 2254. It calls \u201cfor the implementation of an inclusive political process led by the Syrians, who hold the reins, based on the key principles outlined in Resolution 2254. This includes protecting the rights of all Syrians, regardless of their ethnic or religious backgrounds\u2026 The Security Council reaffirmed the importance of the UN\u2019s role in supporting the political transition process in Syria according to the principles of Resolution 2254, reiterating support for the efforts of the UN Special Envoy\u2019s Office in this regard.\u201d If the path to implementing Resolution 2254 previously passed through 2016\u20132017 via the (Geneva Conference) under US and Russian sponsorship, then now, implementing Resolution 2254 is through the (General National Conference), where political, economic, social, and military forces elect their representatives, and the current authority participates, making it a founding conference to agree on a roadmap for the transitional phase, including its executive, legislative, and constitutional contents. The transitional phase would culminate in presidential, parliamentary, and local elections under a new temporary constitution drafted by a committee emanating from the conference<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During one of the Iftar gatherings in Ramadan 2011 (August), at Dr. Nabil el-Arabi’s house, Secretary-General of the Arab League in Cairo, a draft of the (The Arab Initiative) was written by a member of the (National Coordination Body). The initiative was adopted by the Arab League on November 2, 2011. The idea behind the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1359,"featured_media":6366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,61],"tags":[1007,593,908,907,40],"ppma_author":[962],"class_list":["post-6365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-slider","tag-bashar-al-assad","tag-damascus","tag-hayat-tahrir-al-sham","tag-suwayda","tag-syria"],"authors":[{"term_id":962,"user_id":1359,"is_guest":0,"slug":"mohammad-sayed-rassas","display_name":"Mohammad Sayed Rassas","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/WhatsApp-Image-2024-10-09-at-15.30.05-e1728481060869.jpeg","url2x":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/WhatsApp-Image-2024-10-09-at-15.30.05-e1728481060869.jpeg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6365"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6370,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6365\/revisions\/6370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6365"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=6365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}