Trying to save Syria

UN has managed to broker sufficient cooperation in Security Council to garner unanimous vote in favour of a ceasefire

The Syrian civil war is almost five-year-old. It has triggered the greatest humanitarian crisis of the century thus far and reached out to threaten the states of the European Union as they struggle to accommodate the hundreds of thousands that are fleeing the fighting. Finally, the UN has managed to broker sufficient cooperation in the Security Council to garner a unanimous vote in favour of a ceasefire, hopefully in early 2016, but with no specified date. The US and Russia, supporters of opposing sides in the war, have spent months crafting the draft resolution which leaves open the question of the future of President Bashar al Assad. The Americans and their allies want him gone; the Russians see him and his government as a strategic asset and want him to stay. It is too early to predict which way the dice will roll, and the Assad government with Russian support is currently advancing, retaking Homs via a negotiated withdrawal by rebel forces in the last week.

What has finally brought the protagonists to at least creating a table if not placing on it a future plan, is the rise and rise of the Islamic State (IS) and a common agreement that until and unless the war can be stopped, then the fight against the IS is virtually unwinnable. Around a quarter-million have died thus far and four million — close to half the pre-war population — are now refugees. There are literally dozens of ‘sides’ to the conflict, with internal battles being fought within the context of a larger war, all of which have to agree to a ceasefire if there is to be any forward movement at all. The destruction in much of the country is of almost apocalyptic proportions, vast urban areas reduced to rubble and then the rubble bombed again as armed groups fight within it. The economy has mostly collapsed, but not completely, and even if there was a ceasefire tomorrow it is estimated it will take at least a generation to rebuild. The UN Security Council resolution may be a faint hope, but for now it is the only hope.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st,  2015.

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