BRAHIMI'S PLAN

Former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan’s failure was spectacular. Following Mr. Annan came the Algerian diplomat, Lakhdar Brahimi, whose frustrations have not been kept secret. On April 19, Mr. Brahimi briefed the Security Council, the text of which was swiftly leaked. The Brahimi statement bemoans the immense suffering of the Syrian people, with 3.5 million refugees outside the country and 6.8 million people in need of aid inside (out of a population of 23 million). Almost half the population of Syria, Mr. Brahimi said, is “gravely affected by the conflict

Brahimi’s Plan

Over the course of the past eight months, Mr. Brahimi has attempted to forge a Syrian Plan. The tide has not favoured this ambition. In the Security Council, Mr. Brahimi laid out five parameters towards a political settlement:

(1) Following the entreaty of the Secretary General of the Security Council, arms flows to all sides must end. These will not stop, however, unless a political process is in the offing.

(2) The opposition must be more united, with the various factions willing to accede to a common, credible leadership. In other words, the tussles between Mr. al-Khatib and Mr. Hitto, magnified by the divisions between their geopolitical allies, need to end, and groups such as al-Nusra need to be harnessed by this opposition or else it will act against any peace process.

(3) The opposition must give up its dreams of military intervention by the West, for it is “neither likely or desirable; nor can such an intervention be provoked.” The recent entente between Turkey and Israel is not a prelude to any major assault, nor is NATO Secretary General Rasmussen’s comment that his alliance remains “extremely vigilant.”

(4) The Assad regime must give up its fantasy of a military victory.

(5) The Assad regime must not believe that the existence of al-Nusra and al-Qaeda will somehow change the geopolitical situation in its favour. The West’s intentions will not be diverted into a grand alliance with the Assad regime to fight al-Qaeda.

A political settlement has been long overdue in this bloody conflict, whose social costs Mr. Brahimi likened to the “exodus of Palestinians from their land in 1948 and 1967.” This is an emotional parallel, but accurate. It tells us a great deal about the intractable nature of the conflict, fanned on by powers from afar that have interests which are not the same as those of the Syrian people.