Who killed the “Arab Spring”?

Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of pan-Arab al-Hayat, penned this think piece in Arabic

Where are the young men and women who nearly three years ago crammed the plazas and public squares calling for the downfall of who they called the tyrant or the dictator or the despot?

Do they remember the victory signs they raised when they heard news of his escape or his standing down or his killing?

Do they recall the dreams they dared reflect upon in those days and their talk of democracy, state institutions, transparency, the transfer of power and the respect of human rights?

Was their behavior actually motivated by their fervor, their innocence or their naïveté?

Were they alien to their communities and ignorant of the degree of injustice permeating their depths and the wells of hatred waiting for an opportunity to explode?

Did it escape them that the problem is basically cultural rather than political and that it is not enough to open the ballot boxes to turn over the page of the past?

Did it escape them as well that centuries of darkness contributed to the incarceration of the Arab intellect and its disablement, rendering the Arab individual incapable of handling the keys to the future?

I have been obsessed for weeks by an irritating question: “Who killed the ‘Arab Spring’?”

That’s why I seize the opportunity of coming across anyone of the major players in the said “Spring” to ask for his assessment – especially now that some of the said ‘Spring’s’ theaters shut out the advocates of democracy and of modern state-building.

I will not name my respondents because our discussions were not to be published.

The man played an important role in his country’s “Arab Spring” when he dealt a painful blow to the despot under whose portrait he served for several years.

I asked him the question, “Who killed the ‘Arab Spring’?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“What you call the ‘Spring’ may have come early, before our societies became ready to embrace a transformation of this magnitude.

“It turned out we still live in the depths of history.

“With the tyrants’ fall, our societies began spewing all the blood, pus, hatreds, coercions and reprisals that accumulated in their guts.

“I think the transitional phase will be daunting and extended. In any case the French Revolution took eight decades before settling down.”

He added:

“We are in a terrible state of underdevelopment. Watch the screens. A university professor talks as if he has yet to enter the era of reading and writing.

“Look at nation-states, like for example Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Bahrain that are now paying the price of what took place between Ali and Muawiyah.

“We discuss globalization and technology and then go to sleep in the caves of history.

“Our capitals are closer to abattoirs overflowing with suicide bombers and assassins.

“Our countries fail to provide regular power supplies to their citizens.

“Our societies participated in killing the ‘Arab Spring’ by letting the prisoners of history take the lead.”

Another player put forward a different reading.

He said the most prominent killers of the “Arab Spring” are those who rushed to mold it, casting an image of their own interests.

He said the West acted as a crook, especially Obama’s America. Washington wanted the phenomenon to serve the policy she adopted years earlier – in essence the policy of promoting to power what she calls moderate Islam, thinking that the latter could contain terror.

He added: The Muslim Brothers, who were the better organized and widespread movement in the community, took this as an historic opportunity to devour it all.

He also said Turkey played a role in killing the “Arab Spring” when she considered a “Brotherhood Spring” victory gives her a trump card in her strategic wrestling with Iran.

He said Qatar used her financial might and international relations to prop up the “Brotherhood Spring” alongside Turkey.

Russia, he remarked was focusing on stifling the “Muslim Spring” lest it turned into a card in the hands of the West or spread to her vicinity.

He said Russia found in Syria’s events a chance to kill the “Arab Spring.” Iran was of the same opinion but for different purposes.

The two men’s words helped me understand what is now going on in more than one Arab country.

I got convinced the “Arab Spring” killers were more than one.

Most probably a stormy season is just about to kick off – a long and painful transition season.

The first condition for moving into the future is to exit the caves of history and bury the illusions of ready-made solutions.

Arab offshore newspaper loses its soul

Abdelbari Atwan's portrait on the jacket of one of his books and next to al-Quds al-Arabi's logo

Overnight, I was shocked to read Abdelbari Atwan tweeting he was resigning from all his posts in the London-based pan-Arab newspaper  al-Quds al-Arabi, promising  to elaborate in his farewell editorial this morning.

I choked up reading his parting words to his thousands of readers:

There is nothing harder than biding farewell to ones loving readers, especially for someone like me whose loyalty throughout his quarter-of-a-century-long journalistic journey never let a day pass without writing.

I did not want this parting moment to coincide with the first day of the Holy Month of Ramadan, but circumstances and other sides played a role in this decision.

Today brings to conclusion my relationship as Board Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of al-Quds al-Arabi, the newspaper I proudly say stood without fail by our nation and its beliefs, fought fierce battles against occupation, foreign hegemonies and corrupt and repressive dictatorships, and always rooted for the oppressed and the downtrodden…

Atwan says he has one project in mind for the “initial directionless, difficult and long days ahead,” which is to write a new book -- his fourth in English.

His first three were:

• The Secret History of al-Qaeda (2006)
• A Country of Words: A Palestinian Journey from the Refugee Camp to the Front Page (2008)
• After Bin Laden: Al Qaeda, the Next Generation (2012)

Atwan has also contributed chapters and essays to several academic and specialist books and journals.

He is a regular guest on Dateline London on BBC, BBC World, Sky News, Aljazeera English and CNN World as well as on several Arab TV news networks.

Born in 1950 in Deir el-Balah, a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Atwan studied journalism at Cairo University. In 1978, he moved to London, where he has lived and worked ever since.

Expatriate Palestinians founded al-Quds al-Arabi in 1989, when Atwan was named editor-in-chief, then board chairman as well.

The newspaper is now printed in London, New York and Frankfurt, and then circulated in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and North America. In addition to its modest London headquarters, the paper has representative offices in Cairo, Rabat and Amman.

Marc Lynch of Foreign Policy called al-Quds al-Arabi "the most populist/'rejection camp' of the major Arab papers."

Famed French-Lebanese journalist Randa Habib tweeted Atwan saying, “…You are and will remain always a legend.”

“You were my only trusted window to politics,” another tweep wrote him.

Personally, I firmly believe a newspaper or newsmagazine should have a “soul of its own.”

Atwan was the soul of al-Quds al-Arabi.

The soul of al-Hawadeeth was Salim al-Lawzi al-Hayat’s was Kamel Mroue, and an-Nahar’s was Ghassan Tueni.

I hope the purported new Qatari owners of al-Quds al-Arabi (at least according to gerasanews.com) have found a new “soul of its own” for the newspaper in Atwan’s supposed successor -- self-exiled Syrian poet-cum-journalist Basheer al-Baker.

You can read English texts of Atwan’s editorials at http://www.bariatwan.com/english/

“ضربنى وبكى سبقنى وأشتكى”

"He hit me and cried and ran and complained first"

Assad being interviewed for Al-Manar TV

The first thing that sprung to my mind on reading Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s remark about Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia having sent in “100,000 Arab and foreign terrorists” to Syria to fight his regime was the old Arab adage “ضربنى وبكى سبقنى وأشتكى” -- or “He hit me and cried and ran  and complained first.”

His remark comes in a television interview to be aired this evening on Al-Manar, the television channel of Iran’s Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which has thousands of men fighting alongside his troops across Syria. No less than 7,000 of them are taking part in the regime offensive on the rebel-held town of Qusayr.

Assad makes no mention in the interview of their number or the total of other Shiite fighters from Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon helping him crush the Syrian opposition. Nor does he speak of Russian advisors or of Iranian arms supplies, logistical support and funding to his government.

In excerpts from the interview published by Lebanon's al-Akhbar newspaper, which speaks for the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance, Assad is quoted as saying: "The Syrian army has scored major victories against armed rebels on the ground and the balance of power is now with the Syrian army."

He admits Syria and Hezbollah are co-operating, being "part of the same Axis (of Resistance in tandem with Iran).”

"Hezbollah fighters are deployed along the Lebanon-Syria borders but the Syrian army is the one fighting and leading operations against the armed gangs. This will continue until the terrorist groups are crushed", al-Akhbar quotes him as saying.

Assad is also quoted as saying Syria has received the first shipment of the advanced Russian S-300 air defense system “and the rest of the shipment will follow shortly.”

Delivery of the S-300s raises fears of tension with Israel, as Assad is also reported to have threatened to respond directly if Israel launches any further airstrikes on Syria.

He also said, “The Syrian government will not stand in the way of any Syrian groups that want to wage a war of resistance to liberate the Golan."

On the proposed Geneva-2 talks with the opposition, Assad is quoted as telling Al-Manar the Damascus government would attend in principle but doubts the meeting will yield results.

Assad: I’ll run for a third term in 2014

Assad was interviewed at his palace library room

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has poured cold water on prospects of an international conference for peace in Syria proposed earlier this month by the United States and Russia.

He also told Argentina’s Clarín newspaper in an exclusive interview he would run for a third seven-year term in the June 2014 presidential election.

I excerpted the salient remarks made by Assad from the library of his palace in Damascus to Clarín's reporter Marcelo Cantelmi. Here goes:

ASSAD SPEAKING:

Multiple factors make the Syria crisis intricate and long-drawn-out. The foremost cause is foreign meddling, which we are resisting so as to protect Syria.

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The death of any Syrian is a tragic loss but the death toll figures being spread around are inflated. There is no precise death toll figure to quote, but many of those killed were foreigners who came to Syria to kill Syrians.

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Without defining the term “excessive force,” you can’t determine whether government forces used it. Generally, the state’s response has been commensurate with the level of terrorism used against it. The more sophisticated the terrorists get, the more intense the response of our military and security forces.

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Our political reform measures -- including the endorsement of a new constitution, the lifting of the state of emergency and the initiation of a national dialogue with opposition political parties -- were met by amplification of the terror.

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Terrorism can never be an implement for reforms. What interest does a wanted terrorist from Chechnya or Afghanistan have with the internal political reform process in Syria? There are foreign fighters from different 29 nationalities now engaged in terrorist activities in Syria.

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Have the United States or European countries ever negotiated with terrorists? Dialogue is with legitimate political entities and a conventional opposition, not with terrorist groups.

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We support every effort to stop the violence in Syria and every endeavor that would lead to a political solution. We welcome the Russian-American understanding and look forward to an international parley to help Syrians overcome the crisis. But I don’t think many Western nations genuinely want a Syria solution. Powers backing the terrorists don’t want a solution either – they’ve already shot down the Russian-American agreement by rejecting dialogue with the Syrian state. While we support and welcome the Russian-American initiative, we have to be realistic. After all, it takes two to tango.

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The offshore opposition you mention is not independent. It is funded by foreign countries and lives under the shadow of their respective intelligence agencies. If the offshore opposition groups had a popular homegrown following they would be sitting in Syria. Still, they have officially come out against dialogue. Only last week, they said clearly they don’t want to negotiate with the Syrian state.

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We’re open to dialogue with everyone, except terrorists. There is a universal mix-up between terrorism and a political solution. They think a political conference would lead to a cessation of violence, which is wide of the mark. So long as countries like Qatar, Turkey and others have no interest in stopping violence and in a political solution in Syria, terrorism will continue. What an international conference can do is to stop the inflow of terrorists from Turkey and cash from Qatar and other Gulf countries, such as Saudi Arabia.

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Israel backs these terrorist gangs in two ways (1) logistical help, such as tending to the wounded terrorists on the Syrian side of the Golan front, and (2) directives on how to mount their attacks and what sites to target. For instance, it directed them to target a radar site belonging to an air defense system against incoming warplanes in case of a Syria-Israel war.

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The West brings up the subject of combatants from Iran and Hezbollah in Syria whenever we broach the subject of foreign fighters. Syria has a population of 23 million and does not need manpower help from any other country. We don’t need anyone from Iran or Hezbollah to help us. Our relations with them are manifest and decades old.

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Whether I remain in office or leave depends on the Syrian people. As a president, it is not my personal decision to stay or leave. You can’t rule without the people’s support. The decision belongs to the ballot box. People will decide on this in the 2014 presidential elections. But for America or the terrorists or some other nations to order the Syrian president to go is unacceptable.

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I don’t know if (U.S. Secretary of State) John Kerry or anyone else received a mandate from the Syrian people to speak on their behalf as to whether someone should stay or go. Syria is an independent state. Any decision about reforms in Syria will come from Syria and neither the U.S. nor any other state can decide what we do. Besides, the country is in crisis and a captain does not abandon a ship facing a storm at sea. In any case, to resign would be to flee and I am not the kind of person to shun responsibility.

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International monitoring of the 2014 presidential elections is not a decision I can make alone. It’s a national decision.  Some people believe it would violate Syria’s national sovereignty. Others simply do not trust the West for this task. And others would want observers from friendly countries, such as Russia or China.

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The West’s statements on the use of chemical weapons change every day – there is proof, there is some proof, there is no proof etc… Chemical weapons are weapons of mass destruction. The West claims we used them in populated centers. When you hear of a nuclear bomb killing 10 or 20 people, can you believe that? Using chemical weapons in urban areas would mean killing thousands or tens of thousands of people in a matter of minutes. Who could hide something like that? Why did the West shrug off Carla del Ponte’s statement saying terrorists used chemicals?

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Any war on Syria won’t be easy. They know this. They know it won’t be a picnic.

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Intervention is a clear probability, especially after we managed to beat back the armed groups in many areas of Syria. Israeli airstrikes were used, for example, to raise the terrorist groups’ morale. We expect an intervention at some point, albeit limited in nature.

"The Dangerous Price of Ignoring Syria"

A must read op-ed contributed by Vali Nasr to The New York Times. I missed the piece when published by the paper earlier this week. Here goes:

By Vali Nasr

President Obama has doggedly resisted American involvement in Syria. The killing of over 70,000 people and the plight of over a million refugees have elicited sympathy from the White House but not much more. That is because Syria challenges a central aim of Obama’s foreign policy: shrinking the U.S. footprint in the Middle East and downplaying the region’s importance to global politics. Doing more on Syria would reverse the U.S. retreat from the region.

Since the beginning of Obama’s first term, the administration’s stance as events unfolded in the Middle East has been wholly reactive. This “lean back and wait” approach has squandered precious opportunity to influence the course of events in the Middle East. There has been no strategy for capitalizing on the opportunity that the Arab Spring presented, or for containing its fallout — the Syrian crisis being the worst case to date. The president rewarded Burmese generals with a six-hour visit for their willingness to embrace reform, but he has not visited a single Arab country that went through the Arab Spring.

Obama sees Syria as a tragic humanitarian crisis without obvious strategic implications for the United States. “How do I weigh tens of thousands who’ve been killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?” he asked in a New Republic interview in January. When the president visited the region last month he chose to focus on the Arab-Israeli peace process rather than Syria. The peace process is now at the top of Secretary of State John Kerry’s agenda.

The plight of Palestinians is a perennial concern, but it is in Syria that the future of the region hangs in the balance. Choosing the peace process over Syria underscores not the administration’s interest in the Middle East but its determination to look past it.

Washington has wasted precious time in using diplomatic, economic and military levers to influence the course of events in Syria. That neglect has allowed the conflagration to rage at great human cost, radicalizing the opposition and putting at risk U.S. allies across the region.

America cannot and should not decide the fate of the Middle East, but it should be clear about its stakes there, and not shy away from efforts to at least nudge events in more favorable directions as this critical region faces momentous choices. A “lean back and wait” posture toward unfolding events is dangerous.

The paroxysm of violence in Syria is expected to kill tens of thousands more and produce as many as three million refugees by the year’s end. That is a humanitarian tragedy to be sure, but one with immediate strategic consequences. American insouciance in the face of that devastation is fomenting anti-Americanism. The waves of refugees will constitute an unstable population that will be a breeding ground for extremism and in turn destabilize the countries where they take refuge. Syria’s neighbors are not equipped to deal with a humanitarian disaster on this scale.

The longer the devastation goes on the more difficult it will be to put Syria back together, and failing to do so will leave a dangerous morass in the heart of the Middle East, a failed state at war with itself where extremism and instability will fester and all manner of terrorists and Al Qaeda affiliates will find ample space, resources and recruits to menace the region and world.

Worse yet, the conflict in Syria could spill over its borders. Syria has become ground zero in a broader conflict that pits Shiites against Sunnis and shapes the larger regional competition for power between Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Syria’s paroxysms if allowed to drag on could potentially spread far and wide and even change the map of the region. America may think it does not have any interests in Syria, but it has interests everywhere the Syrian conflict touches.

Lebanon and Iraq are each deeply divided along sectarian lines, and both countries teeter on a knife’s edge as tensions rise between their ascendant Shiite populations who fear a setback if Bashar al-Assad falls, and the minority Sunnis in their own countries who support Syria’s Sunni-led opposition. Sectarian tensions stretch from Lebanon and Iraq through the Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain and on to Pakistan where sectarian violence has exploded into the open.

It is time America takes the lead in organizing international assistance to refugees. America should not hide behind the Russian veto. It should pursue a concerted diplomatic strategy in support of arming the rebels and imposing a no-flight zone over Syria. That would not only hamper Assad’s ability to fight, it would allow refugees to remain within Syria’s borders, thus reducing pressure on neighboring countries.

It is time the U.S. took over from Qatar and Saudi Arabia in organizing the Syrian opposition into a credible political force — failure to do that accounts for the chaos that has paralyzed the group. There are powerful economic sanctions that the U.S. could use to cripple the Assad regime.

Finally, America should build ties with the Free Syrian Army with the goal of denying extremist groups the ability to dominate the armed resistance and gaining influence with groups that will dominate Syria’s future. It was failing to build those ties in Afghanistan that allowed the resistance groups who opposed the Soviet Union to disintegrate into the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The Syrian crisis has become a Gordian knot that cannot be easily disentangled. As daunting as the crisis looks, there is a cost to inaction — in human suffering, regional instability and damage to America’s global standing. And as the Syrian crisis escalates, America and the world will only rediscover their stakes in the Middle East. If Obama truly wants to pivot away from the Middle East then he has to help end the bloodletting in Syria.

Vali Nasr, dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, is the author of the forthcoming book “The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat.”

Six reasons why Syria’s rebellion is into Year 3

“With respect to Syria,” President Barack Obama said yesterday at his joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, “the United States continues to work with allies and friends and the Syrian opposition to hasten the end of Assad’s rule, to stop the violence against the Syrian people, and begin the transition towards a new government that respects the rights of all its people. Assad has lost his legitimacy to lead by attacking the Syrian people with almost every conventional weapon in his arsenal, including Scud missiles…”

Mauritania's Muhammad bin Mukhtar al-Shinqiti

But with the start this week of Syria’s third year of rebellion, the question remains: Why is ending Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s rule taking so long?

The overriding reasons are six, according to an outstanding scholar, analyst and author from Mauritania, Muhammad bin Mukhtar al-Shinqiti, writing for the “Viewpoint” section of Aljazeera.net.

Shinqiti has a bachelor's degree in Sharia law, a master’s in business administration from Columbia Southern University in Orange Beach, Alabama, and a PhD in the history of religions from the University of Texas at Austin.

In his think piece for Aljazeera, Shinqiti explains the six impediments to ending Assad’s rule at a gallop:

One:

Unlike in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, the makeup of the army in Syria is sectarian. Ninety percent of its commanding officers and key battalions are Alawite. Breaking its cohesion is time-consuming and costly.

Giving added strength to Assad’s regime is the mobilization for its defense of the region’s Shiite infrastructure – all the way from Lebanon to Iran. The enlistment takes in most Arab Shiite elites in the region.

Two:

The second impediment is Russia’s support of Assad’s savagery, a stand that can be explained culturally and strategically.

Culturally, French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville envisaged in the 19^th century two great nations – America and Russia – advancing toward world supremacy in the 20^th century.

“All other peoples seem to have nearly reached their natural limits and to need nothing but to preserve them; but these two are growing,” he wrote, adding:

“The American fights against natural obstacles; the Russian is at grips with men. The former combats the wilderness and barbarism; the latter, civilization with all its arms. America’s conquests are made with the plowshare, Russia’s with the sword. To attain their aims, the former relies on personal interest and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of individuals. The latter in a sense concentrates the whole power of society in one man. One has freedom as the principal means of action; the other has servitude.”

You can blame Moscow’s stance vis-à-vis the Syrian revolution on the culture of “servitude” that is still prevailing in Russia. The largest country in Europe continues to be ruled by a KGB officer, Vladimir Putin, whose administration frowns at the Syrian revolution’s victory prospects for fear of its template resurfacing elsewhere.

Strategically, the Putin administration’s politics on Mediterranean shores are a Cold War throwback.

The culture of “servitude” is equally dominant in China, a single-party state.

Three:

Halfhearted backing from Arab governments is the third factor taxing the Syrian people’s rebellion. Libya and Qatar have been the only two Arab states to stand solidly behind the Syrian revolution. Most of the others sufficed with lukewarm diplomatic support. Some stand by Assad either openly or covertly. Algerian army generals oppose any serious step against the regime lest the Arab Spring reaches their country’s borders. Iraq backs Assad to the hilt for shocking sectarian reasons. Lebanon is two sectarian halves.

There is no better indicator of the Arab state’s halfhearted backing of the Syrian people than their choice of two Arab envoys to Syria – namely, Sudan’s Gen. Mohammed al-Dabi and Algeria’s Lakhdar Brahimi. Both Sudan and Algeria are ruled by the military that simply abhor the Arab Spring.

Compare such official Arab apathy with Iran’s unwavering support of Assad financially, politically and militarily at a time when Iran’s defeat in Syria is now a key Arab strategic priority.

Four:

The fourth hurdle is Turkey’s hesitancy in arming the Syrian rebels. Turkey made available to the Syrian people two lung transplants, one for humanitarian aid and the other for political breathing. Without them, the Syrian people’s suffering would have been intolerable and the chances of their revolution’s success little.

As a strategic bridge between East and West, Turkey is a regional heavyweight, except that it seems unwilling to take strategic risks and remains committed to the West’s ban on arming Syrian rebels.

Short of this changing, Syria will remain an open wound on Turkish borders and Turkey will likely loose its sympathetic Arab street as well as prospective strategic interests in Arab Spring countries.

Five:

The fifth hurdle standing in the way of a dash to victory in Syria is the duplicity of America and Europe’s political elites. They are deliberately starving the Syrian revolution of weapons in order to pooh-pooh and lay siege to the Arab Spring.

Despite the deep chasm between the American and Russian positions on the revolt, for instance, both sides agree on wrecking Syria. America wants Syria destroyed to see Assad out while Russia wants Syria destroyed to keep Assad in.

The West’s embargo on arming the Syrian people is nothing more than a license to the regime to keep killing. It is a replay of the West imposing the embargo on arming Bosnian Muslims once it ascertained the Serbs had secured arms supply lines from Russia.

Six:

The sixth cause of the stalemate after two years is the Israeli position and the weight the position carries in American and European decision-making circles.  

A (May 2011 Tel Aviv-datelined) report in the Christian Science Monitor said Assad’s downfall would remove a key player in the Iran-led alliance threatening the Jewish state, but Assad’s Syria has been a stable neighbor and maintained a regional balance that Israeli officials and analysts fear could crumble.

The report quoted Giora Eilan, a former national security adviser under former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, as saying Sharon once slammed an Israeli who suggested that regime change in Syria. “Sharon said, ‘Are you crazy?’” he recalls. “The best for the time being, is having a Bashar Assad who is fighting for his legitimacy.’”

Syrian opposition looks on the up and up

"New Syria" Ambassador to Qatar, Nizar al-Haraki

Qatar is the world’s first to hand over the Syrian embassy in its capital, Doha, to the Syrian opposition.

The move was announced in a statement by the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, which promptly named Nizar al-Haraki as ambassador.

Haraki, 50, hails from Deraa, cradle of the Syrian uprising, and is an electrical engineering graduate of Aleppo University, where scores of students were killed by MIG airstrikes in mid-January.

Speaking to AFP by phone, Haraki said the Qatari authorities had accepted his appointment.

"I will start work along with two other diplomats," said Haraki.

"Depending on whether they support the revolution, we will decide which former embassy staff members we will keep, and who we will lay off."

Captured al-Jarrah air base

In its statement, the Syrian National Coalition said one of the embassy’s priorities would be to work in tandem with the Qatari Foreign Ministry on issues concerning the travel documents of large numbers of Syrian exiles and refugees.

Human rights chief Navi Pillay says the death toll in Syria is now nearly 70,000. She had given an estimate of at least 60,000 at the beginning of the year.

Russia today confirmed it is still supplying arms to Syria's government. However, the head of the state arms exporter said the supplies did not include attack weapons such as planes or helicopters.

In fighting this week, Syrian opposition forces captured al-Jarrah military air base near Aleppo, where they seized usable MIG fighter jets.

They also overran the country’s strategic al-Furat hydroelectric dam, which they have fought over since July.

The dam is 60 meters high and 4.5 kilometers long and is Syria’s largest. It was built between 1968 and 1973 with help from the Soviet Union.

The price of chasing a political solution in Syria

Following is my paraphrasing of a think piece posted this morning on Aljazeera’s portal and penned in Arabic by veteran political analyst and commentator Yasser Zaatera:

Talk of a political solution in Syria is mounting by the day, not only among those directly concerned, such as Russia, Iran and Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, but in opposition circles as well.

The opposition includes the “Onshore” Coordination Committee and the “Offshore” National Coalition and National Council.

Likewise, the regime, which is striving at all levels to show a fair amount of internal cohesion and its ability to prevail militarily.

Leaks to Hezbollah’s mouthpiece al-Akhbar about the “First Lady” being pregnant, and President Bashar al-Assad being assertive about the successes of his army and his ability to come out on top, are simply attempts to expedite the solution.

Russia is arguably scurrying for a solution for fear of military setbacks it does not preclude and risk precipitating a loss of control.

Russia is absolutely convinced the regime can’t possibly prevail by military might and the longer the fighting drags out, the lower the chances of a face-saving settlement.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s recent remarks set the tone of Moscow’s occasional concerns, which dissipate once Sergei Lavrov, the hawk of Russia’s Syria policy, resumes talking tough.

Iran in turn seems in a rush. It aspires to do a deal with Washington inclusive of sanctions, its nuclear program and the Syria file in the few months left on the countdown clock to its June presidential elections, the most sensitive since the 1979 Khomeini revolution, according to Ali Akbar Velayati.

The leadership of Iran’s conservative camp believes the Syria situation and recent reversals in Iraq will have their say in the looming presidential ballot. The rationale is that the Iranian street will hold the conservative leadership accountable for failure of its regional project, which cost it an arm and a leg – not to mention the debilitating sanctions caused by its unconvincing nuclear ambitions.

Outside the realm of its narrow sectarian politics, Tehran is undoubtedly concerned about the political burden caused by the Syria file on its links with the Arab and Islamic worlds.

But instead of teaching Tehran a lesson, such a “concern” sees it escape forward without avoiding pitfalls, as against Mohamed Morsi in Egypt’s case.

This explains why Iran leaders don’t stop talking of a political solution in Syria, entreating the Syrian opposition (specifically the National Coalition) to a dialogue and leaking ceaseless news of their huddles with Coordination Committee representatives.

The U.S. and the West’s veto on a political solution seems to have evaporated too, particularly that the destruction (of Syria) demanded by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has peaked, raising the specter of chemical weapons and long-range ground and ground-to-air missiles.

Netanyahu expressed his worries by ordering Israel’s latest airstrike.

The raid, which Bashar said targeted a scientific research center, was apparently a chemical weapons storage site the Israelis feared might fall into rebel hands. Proof is that the army communiqué hinted at the failure of “terrorists” to seize it, despite trying.

The other account is that the airstrike was against a convoy ferrying ground-to-air missile to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The American line is that the bombed site was home to chemicals as well as long-range ground-to-ground and ground-to-air missiles.

Also shaping the West’s stance is the rise of the Jihadists’ clout on the Syria scene.

This is a cause of concern for the West after the attack on Algeria’s Amenas gas plant, France’s intervention in Mali, the earlier outrage in Benghazi, and the uncertainties of the Syria endgame.

In short, the West does not want to see the fighting go on to the point where Jihadists effectively rule the roost in Syria.

The regime is aware of this. And so are the Russians and the Iranians, who are now blowing out of proportion the Jihadist factor. Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, for instance, went on record claiming Jabhat al-Nusra members now make up 70 percent of rebel fighters in Syria.

Additionally, Bashar – as reported by al-Akhbar – suggested the U.S. “is not ready” for a solution yet, implying that the key to one remains in his and his allies’ hands.

Weighing most on the shoulders of the regime and its allies is unquestionably the economic factor.

Bashar’s coffers are quickly running dry and his treasury risks going bankrupt under the burdens of battle estimated by Western sources at $1 billion a month.

Correspondingly, the Syrian opposition feels the weight of the world on its shoulders due to: (1) The magnitude of the human suffering (2) Devastation of the country and its economy (3) The financial and military embargo clamped on the revolution.

The opposition’s biggest handicap is its failure to forge a single policy opinion – one that fuses together the initiative of Moaz al-Khatib and the Coordination Committee views endorsing Lakhdar Brahimi’s plan without a mention of Bashar.

Moaz al-Khatib has now offered talks with regime representatives outside Syria, subject to the release of 160,000 detainees and the renewal of all expired passports held by members of the Syrian diaspora.

And to regain the trust of the National Coalition and National Council, he later explained that his conditional offer was to begin talks for the regime’s departure.

The regime cannot possibly accept Moaz al-Khatib’s offer because it would be effectively acknowledging defeat.

A crucial problem relates to the side that can impose a settlement on the warring camps.

Bashar addressed this point indirectly in the leaks to al-Akhbar, saying if Turkey simply cut supply lines to the rebels, he could bring the “insurgency” to its knees inside two weeks – a sign of his arrogance and political blindness.

So what can the regime or its Russian and Iranian mainstays offer the opposition after its breakthrough with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden? And what trade-off would they propose to the U.S., knowing that the opposition won’t submit to any Washington diktat?

The outcome of the ongoing “political ping-pong” is hard to predict.

Surely though, prolongation of the battle will not only lead to more victims and ruin, but also make Bashar and his inner circles’ survival chances unimaginable.

Even if the battle lasted a few more years, the regime will fall.

Turkey for one, plus the revolution’s Arab backers, will not accept defeat by the regime and Iran.

One pointer is Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s whistle-stop visit to Qatar at the tail end of January. Together with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar get full play in the opposition camp.

Even assuming the political ping-pong led to a “Great Bargain” involving the Russians, the Americans and Iran, none of them can dictate anything to the rebels.

Plainly, any solution that keeps Assad in office can only mean the revolution’s defeat. That’s one thing Turkey specifically will not accept. Turkey cannot bear defeat by Iran, period.

Therein the good tidings lie before the opposition: the prospects of qualitative arms from Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia – plus the possibility of Jordan turning a blind eye to the smuggling of arms into Syria.

Once that happens, the situation on the ground would shift in favor of the revolution, possibly allowing it to concentrate on the battle for Damascus while popular protests continue almost everywhere else.

The implication is that military muscle would put political travails in the shade and eventually bring down the regime. The assumption is opposition leaders would by then have figured the endgame after consulting the revolution’s backers and shutting out U.S. wiles.

In short, the next few months will be decisive in shaping the final scene leaving out Assad, even if Russia – and more so Iran – kept digging in their heels.