A while back, I had a discussion with a prominent member of the Syrian opposition. Perhaps, I suggested tentatively, the rise of Islamist forces in Syria meant that the regime of President Bashar Al Assad now represented the lesser evil. The reply I received was absolutely firm: “There is nothing worse than Al Assad. He is [the] absolute evil.”
It is easy to understand that point of view. Most of the more than 220,000 people estimated to have died in the Syrian war have been killed by the Al Assad regime. The millions of refugees outside the country have, in large part, fled the regime. The Syrian government has shown no compunction in killing civilians and has used barrel bombs and chemical weapons, disappearances and torture as tools. The Al Assad regime has also been noticeably more eager to attack the Syrian moderates than the extremists.
For these reasons, I have always shrunk back from the idea that the Al Assad regime could be any part of the solution in Syria. But I have now changed my mind. There are many evil forces on the loose in Syria — including the Al Assad government, Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) and groups linked to Al Qaida. But the biggest evil of the lot is the civil war that continues to leave death and destruction in its wake. The overriding goal must be to end the war and to persuade outside forces to back a peace settlement, rather than fuelling the conflict. A diplomatic solution clearly has to involve the regime and, almost certainly, Al Assad .
For many years, the West’s preferred outcome in Syria has been a victory by the moderate Syrian opposition. But the idea that the moderates can win a three-cornered military fight with the Al Assad regime and the extremists and then hold on to power in Syria is a fantasy.
There are liberal and democratic forces in Syria. But they are not going to win on the battlefield. Their only chance of getting somewhere is if a political process can be started. That means establishing a ceasefire and working towards United Nations-sponsored elections. Some in the West will object, saying that this means getting around the negotiating table with people who have committed horrible acts of evil. True enough. But we have done it before in the interests of peace. The conflict in Cambodia was ended by a UN-sponsored peace process in 1991 in which the Khmer Rouge — responsible for the Cambodian genocide — took part. The various sides in the Cambodian conflict had powerful external backers — including China, Russia, the United States, Vietnam and Thailand. Ultimately, however, these foreign powers, for all their rivalries, were prepared to work together to end the war.
Ending the war in Syria will have to involve a similar willingness to make “immoral” compromises in the pursuit of a moral end. These compromises will have to be made by both external and internal forces.
The strongest objection to a “peace process” is not that it is immoral, but that it is unrealistic. Daesh’s total rejection of the international system and dreams of a worldwide ‘caliphate’ make the group an unlikely negotiating partner. For that reason, foreign powers — including the Russians, the US and the United Kingdom — currently seem more inclined to step up their military intervention in Syria than to scale it back.
Yet, a temporary intensification of the war against Daesh is not incompatible with an international effort to reach a peace settlement. If all parties, other than the extremists, sign up to a peace process it would then be easier either to split, isolate or defeat Daesh.
Later this week, Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, is likely to propose a common international front against Daesh in a major speech at the UN. Given the parlous state of US-Russia relations, Putin’s proposal is likely to be treated with great suspicion in the West. Yet, in some ways, the Russians and the US are already in a tacit alliance. The US Air Force has been bombing Daesh for more than a year. And the Russians are not feigning their hostility to extremist terror, which is clearly also a long-term threat to Russia itself.
The sticking point remains the role of Al Assad. The answer must surely be to concentrate on the process, not the man. The main outside forces should work for a ceasefire between the Syrian regime and the moderate rebels followed by an interim government and UN-sponsored elections, which would decide the fate of the current regime.
Establishing such a process is obviously fiendishly difficult. But there are some promising signs. The Americans have stopped insisting on the immediate removal of Al Assad. And despite their military build-up in Syria, the Russians must surely understand the long-term risks of “boots on the ground” in Syria. They too need a diplomatic option.
It would have been best had Al Assad stepped aside early on, as part of a peace process. But diplomacy cannot be held hostage by the question of Al Assad’s future. Too many people have already died in Syria to make the search for peace dependent on the fate of one man, however evil.
— Financial Times
