More than any other episode of the unfolding Arab Spring, the Syrian conflict threatens the entire Arab order, and thus needs a broad and widely supported Arab solution, writes Abdel-Moneim Said Syria was part of the Arab Spring movement that has swept many parts of the Arab region since 2011, most notably Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. It also triggered severe political unrest in Morocco, Algeria, Jordan and Bahrain where the ruling regimes responded to the mass demonstrations, strikes and other manifestations of deep-seated popular discontent through various reform measures and pressures that enabled them to weather the storm, if only temporarily. Syria, too, plunged into the revolutionary wave. But here, the regime's reaction was different. It lashed out against the protest movement with extraordinary brutality and whatever reforms it conceded were too little and way too late. It was clear that the regime had lost popular acceptance, the first condition for legitimacy. However, it had not lost the advantage of certain international circumstances that worked to keep Iran as a strategic ally that supplied it with soldiers, ammunition, money and more. Nor had it lost the ability seize upon certain domestic circumstances that enabled it to play on fears of partition and on the opportunism of certain provinces that thought that they would never again see a similarly propitious moment to reverse a long legacy of marginalisation, subjugation and oppression. Meanwhile, for neighbouring Lebanon and Iraq, it was impossible to regard the situation in Syria as something that concerned the Syrians alone, for what happened there would shape the fate of the entire region and, indeed, the future of the regional map. This jumble of overlapping geopolitical and demographic dimensions overshadowed the original problem. It was no longer about the cruel and ruthless rule of the Baathist regime that held its grip on power through decades of despotism, repression and torture. Instead, it was about the fear of a reversion to the situation as it stood in the 11th century when the region was little more than a hodgepodge of rival petty kingdoms and princedoms bound only by a fragile thread of allegiance to the declining Abbasid Empire. It was against this backdrop that the crusaders arrived, stirring a motive for unity that eventually took shape beneath the banner of the Mamluks and then the Ottoman Empire. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was not the first colonialist bargain to partition Greater Syria or the Fertile Crescent, as European powers referred to the Arab Mashreq as distinct from the Arabian Peninsula and the Nile Valley. However, that partition remained in place under the iron grips of various forms of colonialism until the arrival of the "nationalist" leaderships. Yet, if that boundary continued to define the Syrian state geographically, the Syrian state, in the modern sense of the term, remained unborn. Today, the revolution, or uprising, brought the country to a new threshold and Bashar Al-Assad seized upon all opportunities to fan flames in a way that prolonged the pains of change and generated conditions that made parties at home and abroad ready to strike a deal of some sort. The Bashar formula for a deal insists that he remain in power along with his aides, or at least those that are left. The problem is that in exchange he promises reforms that no one believes he will implement. The other problem is that nothing in that deal assuages the blood of the thousands of martyrs, or addresses the new equations in regional balances that have changed because Syria has changed for good. The Syria of the past is unlikely to return while a new Syria is crying to emerge. The Bashar formula, therefore, is a non-starter. Bashar can try to hold out until the end of time, but ultimately he will have to go. Unfortunately, all the regime's opponents at home and abroad have been unable to come up with a historic deal that would secure the departure of Bashar and his entourage while keeping Syria intact as a national entity. Strategic thinking abroad remains captive to two schools of thought. One is the anti-Gaddafi approach that entails international military intervention, which no one wants to risk reproducing in Syria. The other is inspired by the overthrow of Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, which was made possible by a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative and the cooperation of the Yemeni president himself. But so far, no GCC initiative is forthcoming for Syria and we can rule out cooperation on the part of the Syrian president who is determined to fight it out to the bitter end. In the absence of a workable deal from Bashar, or an alternative from other parties in Syria or abroad, the logic of arms will continue to hold sway, as is always the case with acute political conflicts in which neither side has anything to offer but the determination to annihilate the other. The cost of such a conflict can only mount, and not only in terms of destruction, bloodshed and the sacrifices of the lives of those who dreamed of freedom. In the Syrian case, the more protracted the conflict the greater the threat that the region will revert to that primordial age of petty kingdoms and princedoms trapped in a vicious cycle of incessant feuds and unrelenting thirst for revenge. This bleak spectre is not unavoidable. There are ways to resolve the Syrian dilemma. One would be an Arab League initiative in the form of a comprehensive plan that would entail the departure of the current regime in Damascus, the creation of an interim government based on the commitment to sustain Syria's national and territorial integrity, and regional and international guarantees to support this principle. Such a solution could obtain a majority approval of the international community, while those governments that remained outside of the consensus would be isolated or would bargain in exchange for some form of convincing. Once formed, the interim government would gradually extend its control over the liberated areas in Syria, which would be protected by a no-fly zone such as that that existed over northern Iraq, albeit with the important caveat that, in this case, the no-fly zone would be imposed by Arab and Islamic countries. But even if it follows the correct course to international legitimacy through the Security Council and other relevant international agencies, this solution would not succeed without the consent of Iraq and Lebanon. These countries would have to be convinced that the fall of the Syrian regime would not precipitate their disintegration and fragmentation and, moreover, that the persistence of that regime is what poses this threat, which is precisely why the end of that regime is the best guarantee for their own survival. There remains a matter that extends beyond the Syrian situation. Some of the dimensions of the Syrian crisis bring to mind a similar experience in Europe in the Middle Ages, at a time when European states were disintegrating as the consequence of the persecution of minorities and border conflicts. The solution was the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, in accordance with which signatory parties agreed to respect existing national boundaries and to respect the rights of minorities so that these would not be tempted to connect with their demographic extensions across borders and seek to establish new states, which would precipitate further protracted conflicts. It seems to me that this region needs an Arab "Peace of Westphalia," regionally and internationally ratified and embodied institutionally. Of course, such a treaty would not be easy to achieve. But then, all the other alternatives are no less difficult. Perhaps this is what the Syrian regime has been working towards all along: for everyone to run out of alternatives, so that the perpetuation of the regime would remain the last and only solution.
