Syria transition plan to raise more questions than it answered

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BEIRUT, Lebanon — The United States and other world powers meeting Saturday in Geneva threw their weight behind a United Nations-brokered plan for a transitional government for Syria, but the move appeared to raise more questions than it answered.

Chief among them: What about Syrian President Bashar Assad?

Russia has rejected the U.S. insistence that Assad go, and the new transitional plan doesn’t appear to have resolved their fundamental disagreement.

Beyond the new proposal, the “action group” of nations vowed to launch a fresh diplomatic effort aimed at reviving a U.N.-brokered peace deal that is now in tatters. Why the cease-fire, troop pullbacks and other provisions of the 3-month-old peace deal should fall into place now after being ignored by both sides was unclear.

“I expect the Syrian parties to cooperate,” said Kofi Annan, the U.N.-Arab League special envoy who negotiated the original peace plan. “I expect them to understand that the strong transformational wind which is blowing today cannot be resisted — at least it cannot be resisted for long — and that change has to come.”

But crafting any kind of lasting accord in polarized, war-ravaged Syria will be a daunting task.

The armed opposition has balked at any dialogue with Assad, whom it regards as a murderer. And Assad calls the rebels “terrorists” who, he recently told an Iranian television interviewer, must be “annihilated.”

Although Saturday’s communique states that members of Assad’s government may serve in the transitional administration, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was unequivocal about the future of Syria’s longtime leader.

“Assad will still have to go,” Clinton assured reporters in Geneva after hours of sometimes testy talks in the ornate Palais des Nations complex. “He needs to hear loudly and clearly that his days are numbered.”

Not so fast, responded Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has long maneuvered to block any international action to oust Assad, Moscow’s last major ally in the Arab world.

“We consider it to be of key importance that there is no attempt in the document to impose upon the Syrian side any kind of transitional process,” Lavrov said.

The veteran Russian statesman spoke with the self-assurance of a seasoned diplomat who appeared to have outmaneuvered Clinton, his often-acerbic adversary on the intricate Syria file.

At any rate, the much-heralded transition “road map,” as Clinton called it, is less a legal mandate than a somewhat vague set of “guidelines and principles to assist the Syrian parties,” in the words of Annan, who called Saturday’s meeting in an effort to prevent Syria from plunging into all-out civil war. It is up to the Syrians to decide how to put the transition guidelines into practice, Annan said.

The United States and its allies seem intent on ratcheting up the pressure on Assad by securing a U.N. Security Council imprimatur for the transition proviso. Under such a scenario, Clinton suggested, noncompliance by Assad could trigger penalties under the U.N. Charter’s Chapter 7, which envisions sanctions or even military action if members see a threat to peace and security.

But Moscow may not go along. Russia, joined by China, has twice vetoed Security Council resolutions targeting Assad, and could do so again.

The Russians emerged victorious Saturday in a crucial battle of words. At Moscow’s insistence, Washington agreed to the removal of draft language barring anyone from the proposed transitional government “whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardize stability and reconciliation” in Syria.

The text was clearly tailored to exclude Assad, though he wasn’t mentioned specifically. The Russians balked. The Americans blinked. The controversial wording was excised from the final communique.

But Clinton insisted that the wording dispute really didn’t matter. She pointed to revised language requiring that Syrians give their “mutual consent” to anyone on the transition team.

“He [Assad] will never pass the ‘mutual consent’ test, given the blood on his hands,” Clinton said.

The “blood on his hands” formulation, first raised by a journalist in the post-meeting news conference, struck a chord with Annan as well.

“I will doubt that the Syrians, who have fought so hard for their independence … will select people with blood on their hands to lead them,” Annan said.

So did Annan agree that Assad should go? No, Annan said. That is up to the people of Syria.

Under Annan’s plan, Syria’s transitional “national unity” leadership would forge the way for elections, a new constitution and a representative government. But it’s going to take some time, maybe a year for “real results,” Annan conceded.

That sounds like an eternity in a war-ravaged country where, according to opposition activists, civilians were being killed last week at a rate of almost 100 a day. The delay seems certain to revive opposition charges that Assad is using negotiations to prolong his beleaguered regime.

Violence has escalated dramatically in recent weeks in Syria as armed rebels battle government forces loyal to Assad, whose family has ruled Syria in autocratic fashion for more than 40 years.

The rebellion began in March 2011 as a protest movement but has morphed into an armed uprising in towns and cities, including several restive suburbs of Damascus where heavy fighting has been reported in recent days. Reports Saturday indicated that government troops had largely retaken much of the city of Duma, outside the capital, where dozens have been reported killed in shelling and street battles.

The Assad government has fought back against the rebellion with artillery, tanks and infantry troops, causing numerous civilian deaths, according to human rights monitors. But the opposition has also been implicated in the killings of civilians and executions of prisoners in what a U.N.-commissioned report described as an increasingly sectarian conflict that could have “catastrophic” consequences if left unchecked.

Clinton seemed to second that sentiment Saturday.

“If Syria spirals further into civil war,” she said, “not only will more civilians die, not only will more refugees stream across the borders, but instability will most certainly spill into neighboring states.”

LA Times

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16 responses to “Syria transition plan to raise more questions than it answered”

  1. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Well, one could not exactly say it’s stable at the moment. It’s already a very uncivil civil war. Why they continue to describe it any differently is simply to dream of theoretical scenarios.
    Assad and his gangs started to kill pacifist civilians of all ages and genders, and finally the warriors among the population naturally began to respond. After a year of death and input by other gangs no-one should expect it to just ‘settle down’ and suddenly become some form of democracy. 20,000 dead and 100,000 displaced and home-bombed people diving for cover in other countries, will not now call it other than a war. Certainly when tanks and bombs are used against civilians in their homes, it’s a civil war.
    Averaging 100 a day kill rate won’t erradicate all the Sunnis quickly – or any others who wished for a peaceful transition away from a despotic ruling class. The birth-rate is probably still higher than that. The wish for revenge will be strong in all those who have lost so much. 18 yrs from now the baby born today will cross the border from wherever sanctuary was found, to exact a piece of flesh. Assad hasn’t been able to kill many complete families – although not from lack of trying.
    The countries of the UN can sit and theorize all they want, and wring their hands over the carnage of the innocents. Psychologically, they have passed an ‘age of man’ which feels chopping up babies and various civilians is useful.
    But if no-one wanted to go into a FULL WAR with another country, they have done about as much as they can do with the sanctions against the despot.
    Turkey has the best idea. Allow refugees to cross for humanitarian reasons, but line up defences to say ‘Don’t you dare cross over with an army.’ Jordan too has taken time and effort to accommodate the lost souls, and keeps it’s military close. If Syrians must have a civil war, keep it contained.
     Lebanon has been the worst on that response, and better find it’s balls soon. Sure it’s filled with refugees from past battles, but camps should have been set up for the new ones from Syria. Making people try to find refuge with relatives or sympathetic humanitarians and putting the cost of it on civilian heads was not the best way to begin – unless it truly is a lackey state of Assad’s, and the dumping ground for the Middle East.
    Perhaps it’s simply now become a state of refugees. Space was made by all those who dived out to have a life elsewhere. Most coming back don’t see much improvement. In fact, it’s worse than in 1970 … in no small part thanks to Assad.
    Allow Syria to become like Somalia … if that’s what they want. Just make sure the ‘pirates’ can’t get out.

    1. 73Corty77 Avatar
      73Corty77

      Lets not forget the Free Syrian Ass holes 5th. Its not only the government who has blood on its hands.
      And to be quite honest if anybody protect the FSA. Then they to will be classified as terrorist and should be dealt with as such. You need to understand the FSA are cowards hiding behind the average citizen. If they really cared about the Syrian people they leave these villages to protect these people.
      But why would they care when most are in fact from outside Syria. 

      This is the beginning of the end for those mercenaries    

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        And I take it you preferred the Shabiha then.

        1. 73Corty77 Avatar
          73Corty77

          5th its not about who I prefer, its about what’s right. No one has the right to force a president to step down from office. Especially if most of the people which consists of over 22 million wont him in power. Make no mistake. If most of the people didn’t what him in power, he would have been gone a long time age.

        2. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          (Below) Corty … you live in a dream. ‘Force’ is either by gun – or by electorate; and people are forced from ‘office’ all the time. Some simply use a ‘Coupe’, and that can be relatively peaceful, it’s true. (everyone succumbs to stay alive)
          But lets assume only 10% wanted him gone … and wanted some electoral variations other than the ‘one party’ to address their needs … which ‘one’ was composed of another group of only 10%.
          That’s 20% of a total. The rest of society keeps its mouth shut, either from fear or from greed, and causes no angst with either of those ‘active’ groups – but you are saying they all ‘vote’ in a one-party election to keep Assad. Syria then is better than most countries which only have 51% voter-turn-outs, I’d guess.
          The problem is, Assad doesn’t get only 90% in elections … he gets 97.5% or more. (Which reminds us of one place in Russia where Putin got 104% … rather unrealistic in both cases.)
          So, when you say ‘MOST’, what do you have for real numbers? What tells you that most love the last 50 years under the Assad clan? From what realistic survey can you conclude that?
          Maybe ‘the world’ doesn’t want to fly into battle over it … and they hope a little ‘push’ can change things, and Assad’s mind … before that 2.2 million who disagree can be killed or chased out of the country.
          Assad has the ‘heavy’ weapon monopoly. Can we agree that dropping tanks shells and bombs on children’s heads (at least) does not fit a model of modern civil society of ANY religion? Can you see where some other ‘states’ might be concerned with this?
          Do you really think that MOST Syrians are happy with it?
          Tsk ….

          By the way, I don’t recall over a year ago that anyone was asking Assad to step down. What they wanted was ‘changes’. Something about democracy. If he was so sure of the love of ‘his people’, why didn’t he just allow it to happen? Was ‘the cult of personality’ perhaps not really instilled in your ‘most’?

        3. master09 Avatar
          master09

          Hey 5th talking about the force with a gun. Last week My father was asked if he would take a free ticket and $1,000 to go vote in next couple weeks for an MP in Lebanon.. An Mp died in district of Koura so they are holding an election for a new MP.. Dad reply was, I will be in Bali banging a beautiful women. He is 84. Did they have a red face. :))  
          This is how votes are won on all sides, the buy of a vote…CRAZY is it not… 

        4. 73Corty77 Avatar
          73Corty77

          Your right 5th people are forced out from office all the time, However it doesn’t make it right. Your comments indicate that most of the people in Syria stay quite, either from fear or from greed. I put the question to you. Can you really prove this. Why is so hard to believe that most of the people in Syria Love Basher. Is it because he is not a Sunni. Again as I said in the past. This was proven time and time again through the million who hit the streets over the past 15 months in support of Basher. That’s my proof. Or do you think the government put guns to the heads of millions of people to force them to show this support. The ones protesting against him are a minority and a small one at that. However the media is great at fabricating this. You mention Russia and how the election was tampered with. Why is it only the countries who do not support the west are the only ones who have tampered with elections. Before Russia they said that Iran election was floored. Now they say China is doing the sameIs this a coincidence. I don’t think so  Remember the famous words George W Bush once said, You either with us or against us.Ask yourself what does that really means.  You said Basher Al – Assad has the ‘heavy’ weapon monopoly. Of course he does he is the President after all.  Furthermore 5th I don’t agree with the killing of the innocent, That why I have so much hate towards the FSA so much..   

        5. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          I’m lifting a 1/4 ounce of triple-distilled Arak to your Dad, master09.

  2. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Well, one could not exactly say it’s stable at the moment. It’s already a very uncivil civil war. Why they continue to describe it any differently is simply to dream of theoretical scenarios.
    Assad and his gangs started to kill pacifist civilians of all ages and genders, and finally the warriors among the population naturally began to respond. After a year of death and input by other gangs no-one should expect it to just ‘settle down’ and suddenly become some form of democracy. 20,000 dead and 100,000 displaced and home-bombed people diving for cover in other countries, will not now call it other than a war. Certainly when tanks and bombs are used against civilians in their homes, it’s a civil war.
    Averaging 100 a day kill rate won’t erradicate all the Sunnis quickly – or any others who wished for a peaceful transition away from a despotic ruling class. The birth-rate is probably still higher than that. The wish for revenge will be strong in all those who have lost so much. 18 yrs from now the baby born today will cross the border from wherever sanctuary was found, to exact a piece of flesh. Assad hasn’t been able to kill many complete families – although not from lack of trying.
    The countries of the UN can sit and theorize all they want, and wring their hands over the carnage of the innocents. Psychologically, they have passed an ‘age of man’ which feels chopping up babies and various civilians is useful.
    But if no-one wanted to go into a FULL WAR with another country, they have done about as much as they can do with the sanctions against the despot.
    Turkey has the best idea. Allow refugees to cross for humanitarian reasons, but line up defences to say ‘Don’t you dare cross over with an army.’ Jordan too has taken time and effort to accommodate the lost souls, and keeps it’s military close. If Syrians must have a civil war, keep it contained.
     Lebanon has been the worst on that response, and better find it’s balls soon. Sure it’s filled with refugees from past battles, but camps should have been set up for the new ones from Syria. Making people try to find refuge with relatives or sympathetic humanitarians and putting the cost of it on civilian heads was not the best way to begin – unless it truly is a lackey state of Assad’s, and the dumping ground for the Middle East.
    Perhaps it’s simply now become a state of refugees. Space was made by all those who dived out to have a life elsewhere. Most coming back don’t see much improvement. In fact, it’s worse than in 1970 … in no small part thanks to Assad.
    Allow Syria to become like Somalia … if that’s what they want. Just make sure the ‘pirates’ can’t get out.

    1. 73Corty77 Avatar
      73Corty77

      Lets not forget the Free Syrian Ass holes 5th. Its not only the government who has blood on its hands.
      And to be quite honest if anybody protect the FSA. Then they to will be classified as terrorist and should be dealt with as such. You need to understand the FSA are cowards hiding behind the average citizen. If they really cared about the Syrian people they leave these villages to protect these people.
      But why would they care when most are in fact from outside Syria. 

      This is the beginning of the end for those mercenaries    

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        And I take it you preferred the Shabiha then.

        1. 73Corty77 Avatar
          73Corty77

          5th its not about who I prefer, its about what’s right. No one has the right to force a president to step down from office. Especially if most of the people which consists of over 22 million wont him in power. Make no mistake. If most of the people didn’t what him in power, he would have been gone a long time age.

        2. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          (Below) Corty … you live in a dream. ‘Force’ is either by gun – or by electorate; and people are forced from ‘office’ all the time. Some simply use a ‘Coupe’, and that can be relatively peaceful, it’s true. (everyone succumbs to stay alive)
          But lets assume only 10% wanted him gone … and wanted some electoral variations other than the ‘one party’ to address their needs … which ‘one’ was composed of another group of only 10%.
          That’s 20% of a total. The rest of society keeps its mouth shut, either from fear or from greed, and causes no angst with either of those ‘active’ groups – but you are saying they all ‘vote’ in a one-party election to keep Assad. Syria then is better than most countries which only have 51% voter-turn-outs, I’d guess.
          The problem is, Assad doesn’t get only 90% in elections … he gets 97.5% or more. (Which reminds us of one place in Russia where Putin got 104% … rather unrealistic in both cases.)
          So, when you say ‘MOST’, what do you have for real numbers? What tells you that most love the last 50 years under the Assad clan? From what realistic survey can you conclude that?
          Maybe ‘the world’ doesn’t want to fly into battle over it … and they hope a little ‘push’ can change things, and Assad’s mind … before that 2.2 million who disagree can be killed or chased out of the country.
          Assad has the ‘heavy’ weapon monopoly. Can we agree that dropping tanks shells and bombs on children’s heads (at least) does not fit a model of modern civil society of ANY religion? Can you see where some other ‘states’ might be concerned with this?
          Do you really think that MOST Syrians are happy with it?
          Tsk ….

        3. master09 Avatar
          master09

          Hey 5th talking about the force with a gun. Last week My father was asked if he would take a free ticket and $1,000 to go vote in next couple weeks for an MP in Lebanon.. An Mp died in district of Koura so they are holding an election for a new MP.. Dad reply was, I will be in Bali banging a beautiful women. He is 84. Did they have a red face. :))  
          This is how votes are won on all sides, the buy of a vote…CRAZY is it not… 

        4. 73Corty77 Avatar
          73Corty77

          Your right 5th people are forced out from office all the time, However it doesn’t make it right. Your comments indicate that most of the people in Syria stay quite, either from fear or from greed. I put the question to you. Can you really prove this. Why is so hard to believe that most of the people in Syria Love Basher. Is it because he is not a Sunni. Again as I said in the past. This was proven time and time again through the million who hit the streets over the past 15 months in support of Basher. That’s my proof. Or do you think the government put guns to the heads of millions of people to force them to show this support. The ones protesting against him are a minority and a small one at that. However the media is great at fabricating this. You mention Russia and how the election was tampered with. Why is it only the countries who do not support the west are the only ones who have tampered with elections. Before Russia they said that Iran election was floored. Now they say China is doing the sameIs this a coincidence. I don’t think so  Remember the famous words George W Bush once said, You either with us or against us.Ask yourself what does that really means.  You said Basher Al – Assad has the ‘heavy’ weapon monopoly. Of course he does he is the President after all.  Furthermore 5th I don’t agree with the killing of the innocent, That why I have so much hate towards the FSA so much..   

        5. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          I’m lifting a 1/4 ounce of triple-distilled Arak to your Dad, master09.

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