Kofi Annan's peace plan has failure written all over it, but it still offers the best solution to the Syrian crisis, writes Graham Usher at the UN On 2 April UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Anan told the Security Council that he has set 10 April as the deadline for a partial implementation of his peace plan. He said Syria had agreed to the call, pledging to stop troop movements into, and withdraw heavy weapons from population centres. "If we are able to verify this [withdrawal] on the 10th, then the clock starts ticking on the cessation of hostilities, by the opposition as well. We expect both sides to cease hostilities within 48 hours," said Anan's spokesman Ahmed Fawzi. Nasser Al-Kidwa, Anan's Arab League deputy, is in contact with Syria's rebel forces seeking their agreement to abide by the truce. Speaking to reporters after the council session, UN US Ambassador Susan Rice said Syria's pull-out of troops and heavy weaponry from cities was just one part of a six-point peace plan drawn up by Anan, endorsed by the UN and agreed to by the Syrian government. This, she said, also includes "humanitarian access" to cities under siege; "access to the media, and of course the political process", including negotiations between the Syrian regime and opposition, and the freedom of assembly and protest for the Syrian people. The envoy is "expecting details from the Syrian government very shortly on [these] other aspects", said Rice, barely concealing her disbelief. A ceasefire is the capstone of the Anan plan. He asked the council to support the 10 April deadline and "to begin consideration of a potential UN monitoring mission" to observe any truce, a move that may require a UN resolution. Full approval was given by the 15 member states, from Russia to the US, despite scepticism from some and calls that the withdrawal be done immediately from others. Given the divides Syria has rent on the council over the last year such unanimity is a measure of the worth by which member states view Anan and his mission. "We must give him the chance, the time and the conditions to carry out what he's doing," said one council ambassador. The UN is hardly alone in this solidarity. The Arab League and the so-called Friends of Syria coalition have both endorsed the Anan plan as the only political process for resolving the Syria crisis. This is quite a volte-face for the Arabs. Three months ago the Arab League was promoting a peace plan which, among other things, called on President Bashar Al-Assad to devolve power to a deputy. Backed by Western states, it was denounced by Damascus and vetoed by Russia and China in a council resolution. The call for the transfer of power has now been airbrushed. "Mr Anan doesn't have [Al-Assad standing down] as an immediate objective," said one Arab diplomat dryly. Russia reportedly said it could not support his plan if he had. That Anan has managed to marshal such an international consensus behind his plan is testimony to his prestige, said one diplomat. But he cannot afford too many failures. And his peace plan has failure written over it. It's not just the tortuous negotiations that will be required to agree a ceasefire and install an international observer force that is amenable to the regime, the rebels and the UN. It's the rest of Anan's political plan that Syria has yet to acknowledge. "I think a ceasefire and humanitarian access are relatively easy for the regime to accept," said one Arab source. "The real difficulty is the political process, when the government and opposition start negotiations. For that to be viable, not only must a ceasefire be in place, but the media must be free and the people must be allowed to protest. But if the people take to streets, they won't leave them until Al-Assad falls." Few think the Syrian regime will let things get that far. The difficulty for Anan is to make sure any failure is seen to be due to Damascus rather than the opposition. Otherwise any council action he calls for may be vetoed by Russia or China. On the other hand, any resolution that carries their vote or even abstention would really hurt the regime. But perhaps the greatest threat facing the Anan plan is time. At the Friends of Syria conference in Istanbul on 1 April Turkish premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that if the UN Security Council failed to take "responsibility, the international community will have no choice but to accept Syrians' right to self defence". Some are already acting. At the same conference Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates established a $100 million fund to help pay the "salaries" of the Free Syrian Army, a loose coalition of resistance militias in Syria. A fully armed opposition could not only ignite what is a simmering civil war into fully blown sectarian carnage. It plays into Damascus's narrative of the conflict: that this is not a civilian uprising against an autocracy but mercenaries fighting the government for foreign powers who want to change Syria's political character. This is why Al-Assad wants to fight the opposition with arms, and only with arms. That is also why Anan's plan seeks to domesticate the regime through a ceasefire, political negotiations and mass protest. They are its weakest points. (see p.9)
