Syrian Consensus… The Essential Tool for the Solution… And a Tool to Accelerate International Consensus

To clarify what we mean, we will try to confirm two broad issues regarding the situation of the Syrians themselves, and then we will move to discussing the basic idea of this article, which is our belief that patriotic Syrians cannot and should not wait for an international agreement.

A Dimensionally Complete Crisis

The situation of Syrians in all parts of Syria is collapsing at the speed of free fall, and the speed of free fall is inherently a speed that increases the longer the fall continues (up to a terminal velocity from which we are still far away).

Kassioun has previously explained with numbers that the speed of the economic collapse in 2020 was 34 times the average speed of the collapse during the eight years of the crisis that preceded 2020.

If we extend the calculation that Kassioun has performed during November of last year and until the end of last February, that is, we for another four months and taking into consideration the price of gold, then the collapse is still continuing at almost the same outrageous speed, which is a speed that is expected to increase, as mentioned above.

In parallel, no aspect of Syrians’ lives has remained unaffected by the crisis, including bread, fuel, electricity, and the astronomical prices compared to incomes, not to mention the Coronavirus, the lethality of which among Syrians is not more severe than the many other lethal factors, which makes paying attention to it, or the ability to pay attention to it by the Syrians less than anywhere else in the world.

All of this is accompanied by an unprecedented rise in black market activities, including drugs, gangs, kidnapping, robbery, and human trafficking, all of which are activities that brings to mind the infamous Afghan example.

As for the social and humanitarian tragedies, one does not know where from to start – these include things like the catastrophes of education; family disintegration; the disastrous situation relating to the handicapped, the missing, the detainees, the kidnapped; and many others. The statistics that try to monitor these phenomena are more than we can include here, but we refer to one in particular that carries an intense and painful significance, and it possibly alone expresses the whole situation: “Half a million Syrian children are suffering from dwarfism as a result of chronic malnutrition”.

Wholesale “Decisive Points”

In light of the aforementioned tragedies, we see that the extremist sides in Syria do not deal with these issues and the necessity to solve them as “national or constitutional decisive points”:

• Although there is an explicit article in the current constitution “in force”, Article 38, which explicitly states that no Syrian may be prevented from returning to his/her country, officials did not see a problem in imposing a condition on Syrians to enter their country, which is to exchange $100 at a quarter of its real price or less. Those who could not were left in open air just outside the borders of their country.
• For the extremists, it is not a constitutional issue to be decided that: “Each worker shall have a fair wage according to the quality and output of the work; this wage shall be no less than the minimum wage that ensures the requirements of living and changes in living conditions,” as articulated by the second paragraph of Article 40 of the Syrian constitution that is currently “in force”.
• Having more than two million Syrian children unenrolled in school, and up to 1.3 million others threatened with non-enrollment, is not a constitutional breach of Article 29 of the Syrian constitution and treating this is not an important issue to resolve above any other.

We can recall many other constitutional articles in the same context.

• On the “opposite” bank, the bank of extremists in the opposition, it is not a nationally critical decision to apply 2254 immediately, and to exert pressure by all means and focus all efforts towards achieving it. Rather, there are other “decisions” to be made, such as the creation of creative electoral bodies in preparation for parallel elections. As well as laying a cornerstone here, a marble foundation there, and appearing on TV here and there, in an exact replication of the regime to which this type of opposition claims to be an alternative.
• It is not a patriotic duty for this type of opposition to demand the lifting of the criminal Western sanctions off Syrians; sanctions that contribute, hand in hand, with the great thieves within the regime (among them some who are on the sanctions list) in plundering and killing Syrians and shortening their lives by exposing them to cold weather, starvation, and disease. Even Robert Ford, the former US ambassador to Syria, has come to say publicly that the US sanctions will not achieve their “goal”, and even admits that they have harmful humanitarian effects. Meanwhile, some Syrian opposition figures insist on praising US sanctions and denying any bad effects thereof, and thus, contributing to the killing of their countrypersons in cold blood.
• On a bank not far from the two, we see interesting proposals of another kind being thrown into the media, as if to fill the time remaining until “the completion of the decisions”. Atop these proposals is the “Military Council”, which – ironically – are now being discussed by figures who went on and on about their “human rights, humanitarian, and democracy” work, and today they openly say: “Nobody is interested now in democracy, but everyone is interested in ending the fact that Syria is a global and regional security threat”. This matter is not limited to personalities only, but also to sides within “experiences” that claim to be seeking a new model for Syria based on democracy, and suddenly we find them cheering for militarism.

The “New” US Policy

The “set of decisive points” that concern the extremist sides in Syria, which have no meaning for ordinary Syrians and their disaster, coincide with the “ambiguity” that is surrounding the direction the new US administration is taking. This ambiguity has become commonplace during the last two decades with each new administration, and which in practice expresses the overlap of at least two things:

First, an actual ambiguity resulting from the depth of the internal American division, and the resulting large differences in policies, foreign and domestic; and

Second, “media ambiguity”, the aim of which is two-fold: the continuation of the policies of the previous administration (without the new taking responsibility for them), until the approval of new ones (if new policies are approved), and at the same time, opening the door for negotiations with other international and regional sides on the relevant files, while giving American politicians the freedom to either continue the previous policy (and to delude others about the possibility of change while the decision is not to change) or to actually change the previous policy, slightly or significantly.

The biggest document published so far on US policy during the Biden phase is the 24-page “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance”, which was published by the US Department of Defense on March 3. The title of the document refers to the same idea that we referred to above when we talked about “ambiguity”, as it is a strategic but interim (i.e., temporary) guide.

The Equilateral Triangle Legend

The old American fox as they nicknamed him, that is, Henry Kissinger, had previously advised Trump in mid-2017 to befriend Russia against China. This reveals an American desire to repeat the scenario of the twentieth century, but in a new manner: At that time, friendship with China was against the Soviet Union, or at least so things looked then. Kissinger himself was the godfather of this grand plan and was Nixon’s national security advisor.

Trump was emulating this advice in his behavior, formally, and only formally. That is, there were signs sent out from time to time about possibilities for rapprochement with Russia, and even on the diplomatic level, several meetings took place and at different levels. On the other hand, the American rhetoric against China was hostile all the time, and the hostility escalated day after day at all levels.

Practically speaking, the US continued to act against both Russia and China alike, from economic sanctions to diplomatic and political levels, military threats and moves, especially for NATO near the borders of Russia and China, as well as by attempting to initiate a series of bogus revolutions.

We can sense from what we have seen, heard, and read so far, regarding Biden’s policy, that the tangible trend will continue as is against the two countries, and we do not think that there are in the US any who still dream of repeating the scenario of the twentieth century in pulling one of the Chinese or Russian giants to the side of the US, against the other. However, it seems that the American search is focused on reaching a golden equation in the distribution of pressures and consensus between the two giants, with the aim of increasing the distance between them so that an equilateral triangle is reached among the three countries: China, Russia, and the US.

It is not redundant to recall here the official news issued by the Kremlin on December 28, 2020 about the phone call between the presidents of China and Russia, which said that the two described the bilateral communications between the two countries as “reaching their highest level in history”. This was a sign whose symbols are not difficult to decipher, which are directly related to what we have discussed above about the attempts of some in the US to repeat what happened in the twentieth century.

Syria and the US Military Distribution

The “interim strategy” talked about the American military deployment around the world in general formulas that included: “our presence will be most robust in the Indo-Pacific and Europe. In the Middle East, we will right-size our military presence to the level required to … protect other vita US interests.”

Those who follow Syria, cannot read the previous sentence without immediately remembering the following: “Our military presence [in Syria], while small is important to this whole overall calculation. So, we urge the Congress, the American people, the president to keep these forces on. But again, this isn’t Afghanistan. This isn’t Vietnam. This isn’t a quagmire. My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians”.

The previous quote is that of James Jeffrey, the former US envoy to Syria, which he said during a discussion at the US-based Hudson Institute on 12 May 2020. This he repeated on more than one occasion and even added to it in an interview with DefenseOne on November 12 of last year, saying: “Stalemate is stability”, considering that the current situation in Syria, where the solution is at a dead end, and where the various processes are in a state of stalemate, is a stable situation from the US perspective and there is nothing wrong with continuing it indefinitely. He repeated this again and more clearly during a panel discussion in which he participated, organized by the Washington Institute a few days ago on March 5.

So, What is Expected from the US?

In our opinion, the signs and facts that we have mentioned here indicate that the possibility of the US continuing with the same policies towards Syria (i.e., the quagmire policies) is a high possibility. This is especially so since the toxic fruits of those policies are within US reach. The intention definitely is not to implement 2254, but quite the opposite. What is intended is to prevent its implementation, and to turn Syria into a permanently de facto divided country, and a zone of conflict and chaos for many decades to come. This is entirely consistent with the broader US picture, which generally includes at least the following with regards to our region:

• In light of its deep economic and political crisis, the US does not have sufficient surplus power to maintain a large number of its forces and bases in the region, and it needs to focus its declining forces in the general sense on the direct borders of Russia and China, and especially China. This requires the US to find an equation that requires the least possible number of forces in our region.
• At the same time, it is not permissible for the prospects of stability in our region to be opened, because the direct meaning of this is to put into practice the Trans-Eurasian Belt and Road projects, with maximum capacity or at least a much higher level than it currently is. This will irreversibly shatter not only the “myth of the equilateral triangle” but will also undermine the Western influence in Asia and Africa, which has relied over the past five centuries on maritime trade and using various means to strike land trade.
• Exhausting Syria to the point where it can no longer exist, by destroying the lives of its population, impoverishing and displacing them, and inflicting very deep losses that extend for decades, two or more generations (including, for example, things like what we mentioned regarding children with dwarfism, children without education, and other major national disasters), all the way to dragging Syria into the quagmire of normalization, which is a very important goal for the US, and for the Zionist Entity that is trying to secure its “future” so that it is commensurate with the new international balance. This is the future that we claim is severely threatened, and we are not the only ones who claim that, even the Entity’s top researchers do as well (see: The Zionist Entity’s Path to Demise).

These general trends are consistent with the continued disruption of the Syrian political process, including the Constitutional Committee and more importantly Resolution 2254 as a whole, and in particular the disruption of the political transition that alone can reunify Syria on the basis of consensus and on the basis of all political sides making concessions in the interest of the Syrian people.

Additionally, these trends are consistent with Syria remaining divided into three parts, each of which has its own “decisive events” and “carnivals”, without the millions of Syrians in other parts of Syria, and the millions who are outside Syria.

What’s the Solution?

The solution is to insist on fully implementing 2254, without waiting for the US, while leaving the door ajar for it if it wants to join, because its joining (when it joins) can shorten some paths.

Patriotic Syrian from all sides should deal with the US based on a logic that broadly is the same as that written on the Gates of Hell in Dante’s comedy: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”. In no way should we wait for the possibility of an agreement with the US, because this waiting process is in the US’s interest, and because the situation of Syria and Syrians has gotten to an unprecedented dangerous degree, even more dangerous than the situation had reached at the end of 2015.

Therefore, the Syrian patriotic forces must not wait for anyone, because the consensus among them facilitates and accelerates international consensuses. These forces must expand the limits of consensus among them in preparation for entering into the full implementation of Resolution 2254. The consensus exemplified by the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the People’s Will Party and the Syrian Democratic Council is one of the primary forms of this consensus.

(Arabic Virsion)