The price of Obama’s leading from behind in Syria

The fall of the border town of Qusayr to the Syrian government, signs the military balance may be tipping in favor of President Bashar al-Assad, the entry of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters on his side, and the growing credence of reports of chemical weapons use by the regime have all triggered a re-evaluation of Washington's Syria policy.

The Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland next Monday and Tuesday will give U.S. President Barack Obama a chance to discuss Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin and could influence his decision to arm the rebels or do something else to support them.

The United States and Russia announced on May 7 they would try to bring the warring parties to a Geneva-2 conference to implement a peace plan they endorsed a year ago that left open the question of whether or not Assad must leave power.

With the fall of Qusayr brought about by Syrian government forces and fighters from Iran's Lebanese Hezbollah militia, Assad seems to be gaining the upper hand on the battlefield, raising a serious question of why he would agree to any peace deal entailing his departure.

In Washington on Wednesday, Secretary of States John Kerry told a joint press conference with British Foreign Secretary William Hague:

Together, our two countries also remain committed to a Syrian-led political solution to the crisis there. We are deeply concerned about the dire situation in Syria, including the involvement of Hezbollah, as well as Iran, across state lines in another country. So we are focusing our efforts now on doing all that we can to support the opposition as they work to change the balance on the ground. And together, we have provided tremendous humanitarian assistance in an effort to mitigate the human suffering that is taking place in Syria. We remain committed to the Geneva 2 conference. We both understand the complications with the situation on the ground and moving forward rapidly. But there will have to be a political solution, ultimately, to the situation on the ground, and that is the framework that will continue to be the outline, and we remain committed to it.

QUESTION (from Jill Dougherty of CNN): ... After this catastrophic defeat for the opposition in Qusayr, do you still believe they can win and do it without the weapons they are asking for?

KERRY: Look, I think that nobody wins in Syria the way things are going; the people lose, and Syria as a country loses. And what we have been pushing for, all of us involved in this effort, is a political solution that ends the violence, saves Syria, stops the killing and destruction of an entire nation. And that’s what we’re pushing for. So it’s not a question to me whether or not the opposition can, quote, “win.” It’s a question of whether or not we can get to this political solution.

And the political solution that the Russians have agreed to contemplates a transition government. The implementation of Geneva-1 is the goal of Geneva-2, and that is a transition government with full executive authority, which gives the Syrian people as a whole, everybody in Syria, the chance to have a new beginning where they choose their future leadership. Now, that’s the goal.

And we have said that we will do everything we can and we’re able to do to help the opposition be able to achieve that goal and to reach a point where that can be implemented. And that’s what we’re trying to do. And I think that there’s unanimity about the importance of trying to find a way to peace, not a way to war. Now, the Assad regime is making that very difficult.

We will be – as everybody knows and has written about, we’re meeting to talk about the various balances in this issue right now. And I have nothing to announce about that at this point, but clearly, the choice of weapons that he has engaged in across the board challenge anybody’s values and standards of human behavior. And we’re going to have to make judgments for ourselves about how we can help the opposition to be able to deal with that.

(...)

QUESTION (from Tom Whipple, The Times): We’ve heard you say similar things for 800 days about Syria.

KERRY: Well, not me. I haven’t been in office for 800 days.

QUESTION: Officials like yourself, sir. Can you say – can you give us a sense, any sense at all, what you’ve been talking about in terms of the kind of help you may be offering the Syrian rebels, and why you aren’t able to say anything more than you’re saying at the moment, which you’re staying pretty tight-lipped about what you’ve been discussing in terms of this help you can give the rebels? At some point, it’s going to be too late for that, isn’t it? Do you think we’ve reached that point?

KERRY: I’m not going to make judgments about the points, where we are or aren’t. I’ll just say to you that as I said to you, we are determined to do everything that we can in order to help the opposition to be able to reach – to save Syria. And that stands. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. I have nothing new to announce today. When and if I do, you’ll hear about it. But at this moment, we are in consideration, as everybody knows – it’s been written about this week. People are talking about what further options might be exercised here. And we certainly had some discussion about that, obviously. But we don’t have anything to announce at this moment.

In his think piece today for the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat, Lebanese political analyst Abdelwahhab Badrakhan says in part:

While both the regime and the opposition have allies, fact is regime partners have proved dependable and committed.

By contrast, the opposition’s “friends” have led it to a blind alley.

Qusayr’s defenders gave their all. The regime and its mercenaries were an invasion unit.

The battle was between Syrians and an outside force alien to both Syria and Lebanon. The regime sent for it to regain control of the town.

“Control” in regime parlance means the cities, towns and townships should be in ruin and their residents hushed and subdued, as they were 27 months earlier.

Qusayr fell because its position on the map allowed the invaders to isolate it from its supportive surroundings.

Overstating its strategic importance as a gateway linking Damascus with the Syrian coastline recalls the regime’s hot air about “terrorists and armed gangs.”

It also lets slip Damascus bosses are no more interested in connecting with Aleppo, Idlib, Raqqa, Deir Ezzor and Deraa. Their obsession is to secure a “safe escape route” to Syria’s Alawite heartland.

The most important aspect of the battle for Qusayr is that it allowed the Syrian and Iranian regimes and Hezbollah to set a model for external intervention and lay to wrest the “no winner or loser” equation between the sides.

The said equivalence was the raison d'être for Geneva-1 and the June 2012 Geneva Declaration.

The regime never accepted the Geneva Declaration, except slyly. The Russians and Iranians embraced it simply to promote the regime’s own interpretation of the document – namely, a political transition led by their ally Bashar al-Assad; otherwise no solution.

Occasional Russian statements feigning indifference to Assad’s fate were smokescreens. They have dissipated in the buildup for Geneva-2.

The worst and most dangerous fallout of the battle for Qusayr is the bitter feeling it leaves in the minds and hearts of Arab and Muslim public opinions – the feeling that the battle was: (1) the first sectarian conflict marking a Shiite victory against Sunnis (2) the foremost retaliation for the “poisoned chalice” Ayatollah Khomeini agreed to drink from in 1988 to end Iran’s eight-year war with “Saddam’s Iraq.”

Post-Qusayr, Syria and Iran’s regimes and Hezbollah are ecstatically toasting a “divine victory” against what they call a “conspiracy.”

The West and so-called “Friends of Syria,” for their part, proved ready to forfeit the Syrian people’s blood because their humble aspirations do not serve their interests.

The “victors” will not suffice with Qusayr ahead of Geneva-2, having known by now that the White House’s “red lines” are anything but red and Washington’s coaxing and flattery of Moscow will fall on deaf ears.

The “victors” are also conscious that Israel has numbed and shackled America’s Syria undertaking and is now flirting with the Kremlin, knowing that Moscow’s future role would serve her interests.

Israel is of the same mind as Russia, Iran and Hezbollah in preferring Assad and his regime to remain in place – much as it helped Iran poach Iraq and shares Tehran’s strategic designs to destabilize the Arab Gulf.

The Syrian people are not beaten, or down and out yet. But they could be if Washington kept playing second fiddle to Moscow on Syria.

Obama lambasted for betraying the Syrian people

Illustration by Syrian artist Wissam Al Jazairy

“The West, for the first time in history, is colluding with the East to slay a population striving for freedom and dignity,” says Nizar al-Haraki, the “New Syria” ambassador to Qatar.

Haraki, who hails from Deraa, cradle of the Syrian uprising, and who was appointed to his post earlier this year by the Syrian Opposition Coalition, was reacting to the plan agreed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for an international conference on Syria.

The idea is to bring the Damascus government and the Syrian opposition to the negotiating table to agree a transitional government based on the June 2012 Geneva Declaration.

Two leading Arab political analysts today shoot down the plan.

One says it exposes “Obama’s betrayal of the Syrian people”; the other describes it as “a recipe for war.”

London-based Lebanese political analyst Iyad Abu Shakra, who specialized in Middle Eastern Studies at The University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), writes for Saudi Arabia’s pan-Arab daily Asharq Alawsat:

Clearly, the priorities of Syria’s insurgents don’t tally with the main concerns of the U.S. president and British prime minister.

The Syrian worry is a population left with over 100,000 deaths and seven million refugees and internally displaced persons.

Since human rights don’t shape the Big Powers’ Syria politics, the outcome of this week’s U.S.-British summit came as no surprise.

It does not take a genius to make out that U.S. President Barack Obama has caved in and accepted Russia’s interpretation of the Geneva Declaration on Syria.

Washington accepting to see Assad remain in office and complete his term in June 2014 is now a fait accompli. It’s exactly what Moscow and Tehran want.

All talk in previous months by both Obama and David Cameron of aiming to see “Syria without Assad” was a whitewash. And their outcry over Jihadists, Takfiris and fundamentalists joining the Syria war was timed, feigned and orchestrated to cover up their shortsighted Syria policy that looks past the rights and interests of the Syrian people.

Most of these Jihadists, Takfiris and fundamentalists were first churned out by Assad to fight at his behest in Lebanon and Iraq.

As for Syria’s next-door neighbors, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan talked tough against Assad for months. This week, he said Turkey would remain levelheaded in the face of provocations aimed at dragging it into what he called the “Syrian quagmire.”

In Lebanon a few months ago, Hezbollah was drawing a veil over its fighting against the Syrian people alongside regime forces. Its non-Lebanese patrons have since directed Hezbollah to overtly join the fray hook line and sinker.

Jordan, the first country to evoke in years past the looming specter of the “Shiite crescent,” is now struggling to cope with economic, political and security strains caused by a flood of Syrian refugees “exported” by Assad.

The bleak picture of happenings in Syria, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan – not to mention Iraq – does not escape Washington for sure.

But the Obama Administration’s political decision has been taken. The decision is to give regime forces leeway on the field to improve Assad’s bargaining position and to entrust Moscow and Tehran with management of the region’s affairs.

The U.S. administration’s unqualified embrace of Moscow’s interpretation of the Geneva declaration more than two years into the crisis is a bitter betrayal of the Syrian people.

In many ways, it mirrors President Obama’s betrayal of the Palestinian people after the sugarcoated promises he made them during his first Middle East visit.

Abdurrahman al-Rashed, Saudi Arabia’s media bigwig who heads Alarabiya TV news channel, also writes in part for Asharq Alawsat:

Washington’s approval of the Russian plan is a big blunder. It gives hope to a regime under siege.

Instead of coming under amplified pressure, the regime is given a breather.

What’s the worth of a conference that can’t force Assad to step down forthwith or stop the revolution against him? This being unmistakably the case, the conference will simply swell the two rival sides’ wrath and wear off popular support for moderate forces. The winds and public mood will shift in the extremist fighters’ favor.

Has anyone asked: What would happen when the Russian side imposes the idea of a partial regime exit, with Assad remaining at the helm until he completes his term?

How could millions of Syrians be coaxed to return to their homes and resume their normal lives in a country run by oppressive security agencies?

Who would trust Assad to keep his word and stand down in June 2014?

Who says that once he leaves – if ever – he would take with him his inner circle, which is responsible for the biggest massacres in the region’s history?

The Americans have two options – either to stand by the overwhelming majority of Syrians who detest Assad and refuse to live under his and his regime’s rule, or to go away and leave the Syrians to themselves. Forcing the conference on them, they believe, is meant to prop up Assad instead of showing him the door.

Obama's “red line” changes to “white flag”

Kerry and Lavrov: Gimme five!

U.S. President Barack Obama’s “red line” for Syria has transmuted into a “white flag,” according to Abdelbari Atwan, publisher/editor of the London-based pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi.

And most political analysts in today’s Arab press seem to be of the same opinion.

The reaction is to last Tuesday’s announcement in Moscow of a U.S.-Russian agreement to convene an international conference to find a political solution on Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said they would encourage both Damascus and the opposition to negotiate.

The deal came after Kerry's talks in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Kerry and Lavrov announced they would try to organize the international conference before the end of May if possible.

The forum will try to convince both the Syrian government and opposition to accept a solution based on the core elements of the final communiqué issued on 30 June 2012 after the UN-backed Action Group for Syria meeting in Geneva (see my post of the same date, “Syria Action Group leaves open Assad Question”).

The Geneva communiqué called for the formation of a fully empowered transitional government. But there was no understanding on the future role of President Bashar al-Assad and his inner circle.

The opposition and Washington were insisting he should stand down before any negotiations.

Now Washington seems to have softened its position to the extent of leaving Assad's future up to the outcome of negotiations and whatever the Syrians themselves decide, which has long been Moscow’s position.

Atwan, in his editorial comment for al-Quds al-Arabi, says: “Clearly, the U.S. administration made the bigger concession in Moscow by embracing the Russian position.

“After drawing red lines, saying it was reviewing its previous cautions policy and positions on the Syria crisis, and considering the supply of lethal weapons to the Syrian opposition, we see Washington totally surrendering to Russia’s conditions and calling for a peace conference that recognizes the Syrian regime’s legitimacy.”

The administration has suddenly clammed up on Assad having to step down before any negotiations, on evidence of his using chemical weapons against his people, and on his days being numbered.

Atwan says, “There are two winners from the American-Russian political move.

“The first is President Bashar al-Assad, albeit for the time being.

“The second is Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

“Assad has recouped his international legitimacy because he and his regime will now make a strong comeback to the international arena – with the kind of U.S. blessings he had long been hunting for.

“Lakhdar Brahimi will shelve for six months his plans to resign and go into retirement and oblivion. He will bask again in all the glory of returning to the political and media spotlight, which he must be missing.

“America does not want a war in Syria or Iran and wants to avoid them by all ways and means. The Russians share its apprehension.

“The only war the two sides want to wage independently or in tandem is against Islamic Jihadist groups in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Thus, be prepared for American and Russian ‘revivals’ that are now in the making.

“Whether the planned international conference succeeds or fails, stifling Jabhat al-Nusra and its sisters is the headline of the new Russian-American entente.”

Assad

Whether by design or coincidence, three media outlets that speak for Assad say, “The Syrian leadership is glad to see the world redirect its center of attention to the threat posed by Muslim extremists and Takfiris.”

The quote comes from a news report penned by Elie Chalhoub, co-founder and managing editor of al-Akhbar daily, Assad’s mouthpiece in Lebanon

The report -- which is published simultaneously by Al-Akhbar, Syria’s state-run Champress and Hezbollah’s al-Manar news portal for emphasis -- quotes unnamed Assad aides as saying, “Several factors worked very much in our favor, including Israel’s airstrike, al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, the Qatari-Saudi rivalry, Turkey’s Ottoman-style approach and the opposition’s splintering. All this proved to all and sundry that there is no substitute to the Syrian state.”

Chalhoub quotes Assad personally as telling visitors, “We could have easily responded to Israel’s airstrike in Damascus by firing a few missiles at Israel…

“That would have been a tactical response. We prefer a strategic reaction by opening the door to the Resistance and turning the whole of Syria into a resistance country…

“We have full confidence in Hezbollah and are extremely grateful for its good judgment, loyalty and steadfastness. That’s why we decided to give them everything. For the first time, we both felt we shared the same circumstance. We are not only allies and paired…

“(We in Syria) decided to get closer and become a resistance state akin to Hezbollah for the sake of Syria and (its) future generations.”

Winner and loser

The United States has for years listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

Saudi Arabia’s most eminent journalist, Abdurrahman al-Rashed, who heads Alarabiya TV news channel, makes no mention of the group in his column today for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat.

But he says, “Regrettably, the Americans are going along with Lavrov’s plan…

 “What we can tell Secretary Kelly is not to trust the Russian-Iranian offer, which manipulates American fears to dictate a political solution aimed at getting rid of Jihadist organizations.

“In practice, the offer can only widen the conflict and empower the terrorist groups. The latter will surely exploit the wrath of the majority as it is coerced to go along with a solution it does not want, coming as it is at the price of 100,000 deaths, five million refugees and a country biting the dust.

“The solution should take the opposite route, one that sees the international community empower the majority to win its political rights with Assad shown the door immediately and not in a year’s time.”

The Russians, Rashed adds, are capitalizing on the Americans’ alarm at getting Jihadists the day after Assad.

It is two years now since chaos and terror blighted Syria. Subduing the revolting majority at this point will make it impossible to restore any semblance of stability. “For the first time in the region’s history terrorist groups like al-Qaeda will be able to amass loads of partners.”

Washington-based political analyst Hisham Melhem, writing today for the independent Lebanese an-Nahar, opines on “Winners and losers.”

Unlike regular warfare, he says, civil wars are fierce and emotive. Each side is familiar with the other, perceives the fight as existential and anticipates a loser and a winner rather than a compromise.

“Countries where civil wars ended with a loser and a winner – America and Spain, for instance – had a better chance to rebuild and lay sound statehood foundations after a difficult transition, chiefly for the loser.

“Countries where civil wars ended in compromises, specially under international auspices – Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Iraq – remained fragmented and prone to renewed internecine strife.”

The Syria war is unlikely to end with a negotiated political solution and the U.S.-Russian blueprint as it stands is no more than a pipe dream.  

Kerry told to sit with Assad first

From top clockwise: The Kerrys and Assads at Naranj restaurant in Damascus in 2009 and Kerry with Lavrov and Moaz 

A Syrian journalist today tells U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to first sit with his chum Bashar al-Assad to test the water before asking the Syrian opposition to come to the table to negotiate a transition.

Kerry told reporters Tuesday, “The world wants to stop the killing (in Syria). And we want to be able to see Assad and the Syrian opposition come to the table for the creation of a transitional government according to the framework that was created in Geneva, the Geneva Protocol, which requires mutual consent on both sides to the formation of that transitional government. That’s what we’re pushing for…” (See yesterday’s post, “Big Powers seeking table partners for Moaz”)

His remarks shocked much of the regional press.

Syria’s state-run media senses an American volte-face in Assad’s favor. Champress, for instance, declares ecstatically, “American body blow to the Turkish-Gulfite alliance: Kerry wants President Assad and the opposition to sit at the negotiation table.”

Likewise, Lebanese Hezbollah’s news portal, al-Manar, which reproduces the leader comment of pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi titled, “America retracts the call on Assad to step down.”

The Beirut daily al-Akhbar, which speaks for both Assad and Hezbollah, shouts from the rooftops, “Washington follows Moscow: A solution with Assad staying put.”

On the other side of the political divide, the Saudi newspaper of records Asharq Alawsat sounds downbeat, with its front-page banner announcing, “American position veers towards a ‘dialogue’ between the opposition and Assad.”

Editorially, eminent Syrian author and journalist Ghassan al-Mufleh writes in an op-ed for Elaph that Kerry – not the opposition -- should be the one to open the discourse with Assad.

Mufleh’s argument:

The U.S. secretary of state’s personal connection with the Assad family goes back more than two decades. It strengthened after the Syrian army’s exit from Lebanon in 2005.

Sen. Kerry was the main driving force in talks (1) to extricate the Assad clique from the clutches of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) mandated to identify and try those responsible for the assassination of Rafik Hariri, and (2) to then rehabilitate the clique.

I wrote about this at the time.

And when John Kerry was first nominated to the position of secretary of state, I wrote that the central reason for handing him the job is his familiarity with the Syria File and his personal relationship with the Assad clique. I also warned against the clique’s international exoneration as it still enjoyed a measure of international cover.

I also cited the Sudanese example, and how Omar al-Bashir is walking free after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of crimes against humanity. The price for his reprieve was the creation of the Republic of South Sudan and the South Sudan’s Chinese oil puzzle.

John Kerry did not take long to avow his wish to tackle the Syria File as the principal representative of the Israel-condoned Assad clique.

Incidentally, Kerry is also in favor of rehabilitating the Iranian regime and preserving its Mullahs at the helm. The Iranian opposition can thus expect to come under U.S. pressure as well.

The aforesaid is in keeping with the strategy of President Barack Obama’s inner circle. (Remember how the White House vetoed last year’s plan -- backed by Panetta-Dempsey-Clinton-Petraeus -- to arm carefully vetted Syrian rebels).

Bypassing the Obama-Kerry plan taking shape is the responsibility of the Syrian opposition and revolutionary forces.

But not to sound totally negative, the U.S. secretary of state can head to Damascus for a dialogue with the Assad clique before implicating the Syrian opposition in the game of the clique’s rehabilitation.

The follow-on would be a UN Security Council resolution, based on the Geneva framework, ordering the Assad clique to stop the killings. The opposition can follow suit. If the U.S. and Russia are in tune, what can prevent the UN Security Council passing a resolution calling for dialogue and a peaceful political transition following the cessation of violence as demanded in Geneva?”

Let Kerry kickoff a firsthand dialogue.

Should he fail, he would bear sole responsibility for the step without the Syrian Revolution bearing its consequences.

Assad's roadmap for peace in Syria

President Bashar al-Assad is just about to go on air and announce his roadmap for a political settlement to end the Syria war.

His two semi-official mouthpieces in Lebanon – al-Akhbar daily and Hezbollah’s al-Manar portal – carry the report (authored by Nasser Sharara) saying Assad’s five-point roadmap for a political transition is based on the Geneva Declaration of June 2011 (see post, “Syria Action Group leaves open Assad question”).

Sharara says the Syrian president’s peace plan, has already been communicated to Moscow and suggests the following:

If there are no objections to his joining other candidates in running for the presidential elections in 2014, Assad agrees to the roadmap dubbed Geneva Two.

Its provisions are:

1. A ceasefire

2. Deployment of international observers to oversee the plan’s implementation

3. Establishment of a founding committee to amend the Constitution

4. Formation of a National Unity Government

5. Free parliamentary elections under international supervision

Sharara quotes regime sources as saying they would prefer equal representation of “Independents, Baathists and Opposition” in the national unity government, each group getting one-third of the members.

The sources also float the name of academic and human rights activist Haytham al-Manna’ to head the transitional government.

The report expects Assad’s plan to be discussed at a meeting later this month of the three Bs: U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

The report says Assad might reiterate in his “peace plan address” that Syrian upholds the causes of Palestine and Lebanon and their resistance groups and its right to claim back the occupied Golan Heights from Israel and Iskenderun (formerly Alexandretta) from Turkey.

U.S.-Russia back-room deal over Syria takes shape

Now that he’s won, after putting Syria on hold throughout his reelection campaign, U.S. President Barack Obama seems set to bungle the Syrian Revolution.

Instead of arming Syrian opposition rebels to topple President Bashar al-Assad, his administration is now hard-selling Russia’s roadmap for a Syrian-led political settlement.

The opening shots in the U.S.-Russian common approach to the Syria crisis came a week before Election Day, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Syrian National Council was dysfunctional.

Within days, the State Department was orchestrating the ongoing hullabaloo in Doha over a Syrian National Initiative (SNI) to replace the SNC (see my Nov. 3 post, U.S. push to overhaul Syrian opposition gains pace).

Almost at the same time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov flew to Cairo for talks with Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby and Syria troubleshooter Lakhdar Brahimi.

Lavrov told reporters at a post-talks press conference, “We decided what to do in Geneva. And it is incumbent upon us to move forwards on the basis of what was agreed upon in Geneva. And the players outside the region should coordinate and… in one direction. And Russia is doing just that. It is trying to execute what was agreed upon in Geneva.”

A more indicative sign Washington and Moscow have shaken hands on a Syria deal came yesterday from New York.

Warning Syria’s current path of violence will lead the country “to its destruction,” UN Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman -- who until last June was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State -- said there was an urgent need to “shift away” from the military logic driving the conflict and to move towards a political process.

“It has to be a Syrian-led process; it can’t be imposed,” Feltman told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York after he briefed a closed meeting of the UN Security Council on the situation in the war-ravaged country.

“It must bring real change and a clean break from the past,” he added.

With that goal in mind, Feltman said, Brahimi was working with “great urgency,” mentioning that Brahimi’s deputy Nasser al-Kidwa was “monitoring” the Syrian opposition restructuring in Doha.

“The situation inside Syria is turning grimmer every day,” he told reporters, adding there was a growing risk the crisis could “explode outward into an already volatile region.”

“We might, in fact, already be seeing signs of this spillover,” Feltman said, referring to Syria-related violence in Turkey and Lebanon, and what he called “activities” in the Golan.

“We don’t think the fighting is directed at undermining the disengagement of forces agreement per se,” Feltman said in response to a question on the situation in Golan. “It is the Syrian-on-Syrian fighting. But, nevertheless, we are quite concerned about what the impact could be if there is not an immediate return to full compliance with that disengagement of forces agreement.”

Feltman flagged how Brahimi saw a June communiqué by the UN-backed Action Group on Syria as still providing an “important building block” for an eventual peace.

The Action Group is made up of the UN and Arab League chiefs; the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) as well as the Turkish foreign minister; the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy; and the foreign ministers of Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar, who are members of the Arab League ministerial committee on Syria.

At a meeting in Geneva last June 30, the Group had approved the “Geneva Declaration” -- a set of principles and guidelines for a Syrian-led transition that meets the aspirations of the Syrian people.

Among other proposed measures, the Geneva Declaration called on all parties to immediately recommit to a sustained cessation of armed violence in a bid to end the conflict, in addition to the establishment of a transitional governing body that would exercise full executive powers and would be made up of members of the Assad regime and the opposition and other groups (see full text of the Geneva Declaration in my June 30 post, Syria Action Group leaves open Assad question).