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Most Arab columnists believe today’s international
conference in Geneva on the crisis in Syria, which was called by UN and Arab
League envoy Kofi Annan, is a non-starter.
“Geneva illusions,” “Better see Annan fail than wait up for his triumph,”
and “Annan’s new plan reverses solution priorities” are three typical titles of
commentaries in this morning’s papers.
Rosanna
Boumounsef, in her daily column for the independent Lebanese daily an-Nahar, describes the Geneva meeting
as no more than an occasion to take a look at the new wrapping of an old Annan
mission, hoping that the reshuffling of its priorities would keep it alive. Annan’s
now-defunct six-point plan made the cessation of violence and deployment of observers
the gateway to a political dialogue in Syria. His new roadmap – dubbed “Guidelines
and Principles for a Syrian-led Transition” – now expects political dialogue and a transitional government of
national unity to put an end to violence.
Boumounsef says several of Annan’s associates previously went through
such tests in Lebanon and other hotspots. “They are adept at improvising phased
solutions and they excel at buying time to salvage international missions that
the big powers cannot pronounce dead lest they are accused of exacerbating
conflict instead of dampening it.”
Satei’
Noureddin, writing about the “Geneva illusions” for Beirut’s pro-Syrian
daily as-Safir, does not expect
today’s conference to be a turning point in the search for a political solution
to the crisis in Syria. Instead, “it’s simply a new signal that the
international community is not yet ready to put a stop to the crisis and remains
on the lookout for added justifications to let the Syrians drown in their own
blood.”
The conference idea, Noureddin explains, is “primarily
an acknowledgement” of the failure of Annan’s earlier six-point plan and its appended
UN observer mission. Collapse of the six-point called for an alternative
political initiative that jumps straight to the long-term solution in that it
lays the foundations for a transition to a pluralistic and democratic regime.
Noureddin says, “Even novice watchers of Syria’s
internal conflict know this remains a dream if not an illusion. Specifically,
President Bashar al-Assad’s interview with Iranian TV does not suggest he is
ready to give up his security and military option or sacrifice his political
reform agenda.”
Assad’s political reform timeline, Noureddine notes, has
meanwhile “dropped to the level of a National Reconciliation Ministry in the new
Syrian government that is ready to accept opposition applications for a resumption
of dialogue under regime auspices.”
Unfortunately for the Syrians, Noureddin remarks, “the
regime’s only option is security and military finality. That’s what Assad said explicitly.
And that’s what prompts the opposition to regard such finality its sole
recourse as well.”
In that light, “the Geneva conference becomes a bad diplomatic
joke… Once more, the crisis in Syria will be returned to its roots. The
international community will do everything possible to keep the Syria crisis
contained within Syria’s borders, allowing the Geneva conference to dissipate
any regional or international illusions about Syria’s future.”
Rajeh
el-Khoury, who like Boumounsef writes for an-Nahar, says the meeting in Geneva “is of no consequence either one way or the other. It must be said, however, that four months into the Annan
mission, which saw the killing of more than 3,000 people and the devastation of
townships and neighborhoods, the mission’s greatest success would be an avowal of
its failure.
“I would
hasten to add,” writes Khoury, “that such avowal, coming after all the extra
time allowed for bloodshed and tragedies, is the best success possible" because
it would:
(1) Pressure
the UN Security Council and the international community to assume their responsibilities.
(2) Quash the
pretexts used by Moscow, which is hiding behind Annan and refusing any solution
that sees Assad forced out.
(3) Leave
Sergei Lavrov and Vladimir Putin soaked in Syrian blood.
Khoury
believes Moscow is clinging to Annan in order to use his shuttles as “a
political smokescreen that conceals the bloodshed and grants (Assad) added time
for an impossible military solution.”
