A Stone's Throw

These attempts were based on much more desire to target the civilians in particular by the terrorists and regional and local hardliners. Thus, Azzara village (urban Hama)  massacre took place, besides that of the Syrian Pound (indicating the new unjustified exchange rate of the S.P against the US Dollar), along with the obstacles before the humanitarian access, in parallel with furious media campaigns reviving "victory" and "bringing down" slogans to make people disparate of the political solution.

Different regional and local forces are crossed in practicing and encouraging these escalations. The common dominator among them is their extremism and being closed around their narrow materialistic and political interests, and their fear of the political solutions. All these operations are just attempts to react to the rapid developments, inconvenient to hose parties, in relation to the requirements of the solution. This can be summed as follows:

1 - UNSCR 2254 has moved the multiple humanitarian issues out of the "political bazaar", and this has been established in the recent Joint Statement by the Russian Federation and the United States of America on Syria. And it has applied as well in the UN Security Council's Press Statement, on May 12th, that condemned targeting the civilians and was balanced in blaming both the Syrian government and the armed groups, each according to its responsibility. This means withdrawing a sum of "papers" from the hands of the hardliners, and narrowing their maneuvering areas, as they were used to deal with the humanitarian issues, throughout the crisis, as negotiating tools.

2 - Through the launch of Russian operations in Syria in late last September, followed by "Cessation of hostilities" declaration as the start of March 27th, and recently putting Al-Nusra Front under heavy fire, the process of combating terrorism has become running within an international accord. In parallel, the compulsory differentiation among the militants on terrorist-or-non-terrorist basis, including their geographical positioning, meaning that this paper will soon drop sharply from the hands of its direct users, and its indirect beneficiaries.

3 - The same Joint Statement has established what Mr. de Mistura reached in the last round of Geneva-3 as the starting point for the upcoming one. This means that the issue of correcting the representation of the Syrian opposition in Geneva is irreversible, and that the theme of the transitional , being the main issue on the table, will head its way towards resolution.
The conduct of the hardliners of the different parties, despite the clarity of the general line of developments, whatever are the lies they tell to their audience on their different platforms, could be seen and explained in the following:

1 - They hope that their recent attempts to affect the course of things, would be useful in deterring or hindering it. If not, they might help in producing possibilities for distorting or changing it at one stage, in the future.

2 - They work in parallel on preparing their own ground for the upcoming transitional period. Here, in particular, the "massacre of $ rate" rises, as a tool through which the local giant plunders seek to increase tensions, to ensure in advance monetary pivots for them in the transitional period, and to make it further complicated for those who would manage.

The "regular people" are, as usual, dropped in the calculations of the hardliner. Those are used to treat people as a decorating setting behind their photos or as materials for the fires they start. The coming stage, however, that of the political solution, will hear the revived loud voice of the Syrians. It's only a stone's throw away.

Kassioun Editorial, issue No 758
Sunday, May 15, 2016