The four-day ceasefire that went into effect last Friday should have been the first good news from Syria in several months. The initiative came from Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN and Arab League’s special envoy, and was accepted by Bashar Al Assad’s government as well as several opposition commanders.
Two Islamist groups rejected it outright and both sides put conditions on it. The government said it would respond to rebel attacks and the rebels said the government should not resupply its troops.
The rebels seemed to be particularly sceptical of any ceasefire since they appeared to believe the military momentum was with them and they had always been wary of political negotiations unless Al Assad first resigned.
Although ceasefire violations have been numerous, there has been a slight overall drop in military activity. Reports from Aleppo suggest the city has been quieter and in other places people had a brief respite, especially on the first day.
UN agencies, working with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, had pre-positioned tonnes of aid for displaced families and were able to dispatch two convoys to Homs on Sunday and Saturday. Dozens of Syrian civil society groups have been working to get medicine, food and blankets to the informal shelters where homeless families are living.
Aleppo has been the focus of terrible recent clashes. It has fallen victim to the worst destruction of any major city in the world since 1945. Over a third of its two million residents may have fled.
According to Haytham Manna, the head of the National Co-ordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria, Aleppo’s tragedy began when rebels attacked the city without having the strength to win it. Whole districts were then destroyed by government counterattacks.
Manna lives in Paris, but the rest of his 25-member executive lead opposition groups inside Syria. They still believe the best way to remove the Al Assad regime is through a ceasefire and a political settlement that provides for a democratic transition.
They condemn the government’s indiscriminate use of air power in built-up areas, but are aware of growing civilian criticism of rebel tactics. Manna even claims to detect signs of fatigue among the armed opposition.
He and his colleagues inside Syria consider diplomatic intervention the only solution. Russia and the US must reach a consensus to halt arms supplies and put pressure on each side to have a long-lasting ceasefire.
This would be followed by negotiations between the Syrian parties as well as talks among Syria’s neighbours to guarantee no outside power would undermine the transition to a new system. It is a tall order. In their recent debates, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama produced the usual formulas that have yielded no breakthrough yet: Al Assad must go now, sanctions must be tightened and support must increase for the armed opposition while ensuring weapons only go to “moderates”. There was no mention of ceasefires, the UN, Brahimi or a political solution.
On the Syrian government side, there are severe obstacles. The ceasefire track is not new. Before Brahimi took over, Kofi Annan’s team had tried to negotiate truce in Homs, Rustan and Deir Al Zour.
Al Assad claimed to agree, but his generals vetoed the plans. Since then, the regime’s security chiefs have launched air attacks and new massacres in districts on the edge of Damascus. Then we had last weekend’s ceasefire violations. Like some of the rebels, the generals still believe military victory is possible.
They have also poisoned the atmosphere for talks, even if it means snubbing Russia, China and Iran. Following pressure from Russia, the government allowed Manna’s group to hold a conference in Damascus last month.
However, the day before it opened, one of the group’s leaders, Abdul Aziz Al Khayer, and two colleagues were detained by troops of the Airforce Intelligence, the most feared of the security agencies. Repeated inquiries by Russian, Chinese and Iranian diplomats have not yet produced their release.
Washington needs to change policy. One-sided support for the armed opposition condemns Syrians to months, perhaps years, of bloodshed. A Libya-style intervention would be a worse escalation.
Far better to junk the failed strategy both candidates followed in last week’s debate and work with Russia and Brahimi on a permanent ceasefire. Whatever disputes Obama has with Putin on other issues, he needs to work with the Kremlin on Syria rather than provoke it.
Jonathan Steele is a former chief foreign correspondent for the Guardian.
