The Spanish minister of foreign affairs and cooperation paid a three-day visit to Tehran last week. José Manuel García-Margallo was not the first Western foreign minister to travel to Iran since the July nuclear agreement between the P5 +1 and Persia, nor will he be the last. The most interesting part of the visit was a statement García-Margallo made in the Iranian capital. He called for the Syrian government to be involved in any future negotiations connected with the United Nations peace plan, as approved by the Security Council last month. He remarked that peace can only be negotiated with an enemy. The Syrian government should not be excluded from any political solution that would end the more than four-year war. In this context, the apparently rigid position of the Americans and their allies and partners in the region that President Bashar Al-Assad must go has proven both counterproductive and disastrous, not only for the Syrian people, but also for the security and stability of the Middle East and the Arab world. Not only has the West been led by Washington up a blind path, but also some Arab and regional powers have failed to engineer a new Syria and a new Middle East subservient to Western interests. To continue on the same path would be a great folly. Syria has become the theatre of a new Cold War between Washington and Moscow. It seems almost a certainty that Russia will not negotiate the departure of the Syrian president. The Russians are to hold naval exercises off the Syrian coast soon. A member of a Turkish-based Syrian opposition group expressed his conviction that the United States is dragging the Russians into the Syrian quagmire on purpose, so that the terrorists of the organisation known as the Islamic State (IS) will not single out the Americans and their allies in the international coalition as their only enemy. The same source said that the reaction on the part of the US president to the Russian military presence in Syria has not been strong enough. President Barack Obama had said that Russian military involvement will prove to be a failure. The latest developments in Syria, particularly the growing number of Russian troops, came in the wake of two major events. The first was the US-Turkish deal to let Turkish forces take part in the military operations as part of the international coalition against IS. The second is related to the renewed strategic partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia, which was sealed during the much-publicised visit of the Saudi monarch, King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, to the Oval Office on 4 September. It goes without saying that Syria was a major topic at this Saudi-American summit. The two allies agreed, once again, that the Syrian president must go. In the muted military showdown between the United States and Russia in Syria, the role of the Arab powers most concerned with political stability in Syria has been, unfortunately, absent. This absence is understood in the context of divisions within the Arab world on the question of how to deal with the war in Syria. There are some Arabs who want to see Al-Assad out of power, and this is their idea of a political solution in Syria. There are those who, while insisting on offering a political way out, prefer not to take sides regarding the political future of the Syrian president. There are those who sidestep the issue altogether while stressing the need to safeguard the territorial integrity of Syria, as well as its state institutions. The three share one thing in common, namely, they do not have a credible answer as to who, among the various competing Syrian opposition groups, will protect these objectives. Another question that most of them seem to avoid is related to the timing of Al-Assad's departure from power. I believe that Egypt is the only Arab power that can arbitrate a common Arab position on the various elements of the United Nations peace plan referred to above. Arab moves have not kept pace with international and regional efforts and initiatives to implement this peace plan. Meanwhile, European powers are moving fast to capitalise on the growing international will to save Syria from terrorist groups like IS and Al-Qaeda. Make no mistake about it, if Al-Assad is abruptly removed from power, these organisations will soon rule Syria. The Spanish are not the only Western interests open to the idea of the continuity of the Syrian state as part of a political solution to the Syrian crisis. The Germans and the French have also indicated their support. The French are, however, known for their seeming inflexibility on the fate of President Al-Assad. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said on 12 September that her country and other Western European nations should join forces with both the United States and Russia to seek a political resolution to the crisis in Syria. Speaking before the German Bundestag, Merkel said that a role for Russia in such an effort cannot be ruled out. She rightly stressed the linkage between a political solution and the fight against terrorism in Syria. This is something that the Americans and some of their partners and allies in the Middle East should ponder if they truly want to “degrade and defeat” not only IS but all Islamist groups fighting in Syria.
The writer is a former assistant to the foreign minister.
