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The Size of the Bubble… and the Size of the Opportunity
Talk about a “military council leading the transitional phase” is still going on in the media outlets and social media platforms. It is understandable that some Syrians, through their interaction therewith are expressing their urgent need to get out of the catastrophic and deadly swamp of the grinding crisis that has been going on for 10 years, even if by “clinging to invisible ropes”. However, what must be understood are the objectives of those who manufacture the invisible ropes and get people embroiled in clinging thereto.
The first thing that should be noted is that the idea of a “military council”, and the way in which it is presented, is not a novel invention at all, nor is it a “magic solution” that no one had thought of prior to the recent proposal thereof. Rather, it is a repetition of ideas that have been proposed since around 2012. The main feature of these ideas is that they are outside the framework of any international resolution (including the Geneva Communiqué at the time), and outside any Syrian consensus. Rather, they are a synonym for a process of taking and surrendering of power. In other words, it is a return to slogans of deciding militarily and toppling, with deliberate timing and purpose that involve “killing time” by distracting people and forces by blowing into a severed bag.
There is no need to invent a solution to the Syrian crisis, as the solution is known and clear and has been stalled for many years, by obvious and known parties from the various sides. The solution is clear and based on two foundations: the full implementation of Resolution 2254, and through consensus among Syrians on implementation mechanisms thereof. Any proposal outside these two foundations aims to complicate the crisis and delay solving it, and thus prolongs the suffering of Syrians.
What is being proposed ignores both these foundations. On the one hand, it jumps over the “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance” and “the transitional governing body”, replacing them with a military body. Bearing in mind that the existence of a military council as part of the transitional governing body could be discussed and may be necessary. On the other hand, the proposition is based on being externally imposed within the same mentality through which some individuals and forces begged for external intervention and no-fly zones. This mentality is the legitimate child of the Western colonial mentality, the old and the new.
Jumping over Resolution 2254 is going back to pre-square one. Even if some try to twist the decision by claiming that the proposed idea is not from outside it, and does not contradict it, this serves one clear purpose, which is to circumvent the possibilities imposed by reality to solve the Syrian crisis, especially within the timing in which these ideas are proposed.
To clarify further, the failure of the fifth consecutive Constitutional Committee meeting to achieve any progress puts the local Syrian sides and the international sides before a decisive point to search for an appropriate methodology to advance the work of the Committee and to push the political process as a whole. That is, in the context of 2254, the decisive point of searching for a way out of the disruptiveness of the extremists is the decision that is objectively put on the table.
Since the extremists have their own agendas that are divergent from the interests of the Syrian people, what they need is to eliminate the possibility of moving towards taking serious steps in implementing the political solution, and to waste as much time as possible. At this very moment the “military council” bubble emerges.
The important thing in the entire issue is that the amount of insistence on floating around this idea is nothing but an expression of the size of the real opportunity to move forward in the implementation of the actual political solution through 2254.
