Sobering Thoughts about the Prospects for Peace in Syria

[UN Photo/Mark Garten]

The first round of Syrian peace conference known in diplomatic circles as Geneva II came to an end on Friday with few concrete results. Arguably, there have been some mildly positive effects. It gave the regime and the opposition an opportunity to compete for the sympathy of international public opinion. In the process it may have boosted the reputation of the opposition for the moment, both in Syria and abroad. It marked the necessary beginning stages of what could eventually become a real, long-term peace process. The probability of a negotiated peace in the near term, however, is not high, and the reasons have little to do with what the respective envoys said or did at the negotiating table in Switzerland. Both sides are there because of pressure from their allies, not because they feel a need on their own to end the war. While the war has been horrible, there is little evidence that it is, as they say, ripe for resolution.

In an earlier post, I described the ideas of I. William Zartman about the circumstances conducive to a negotiated solution. Keep in mind that most wars are not settled through negotiations; they end only when one side prevails over the other. If negotiations do occur, they are unlikely to advance far as long as one side—either side—believes that it is winning. The winning side will be reluctant to make the concessions necessary to any negotiation if it believes it has a good chance to win everything without concessions; the losing side will be reluctant if it believes that it can at least improve its negotiating position through a comeback on the battlefield. A long-term cease-fire does not put pressure on either side. A prolonged and costly stalemate, on the other hand, is the circumstance most likely to make the belligerents consider the value of settling.

In the given case, neither side has progressed against the other in months. Still, the Assad government may believe that the trend favors it. The core of its army has held together, and it is better trained, armed, equipped, and organized than the rebels; the regime’s foreign allies have supplied troops at key moments; its social base has adhered fiercely to the regime. Also, keep in mind that the regime is being asked, in essence, to dissolve itself. That is a big ask.

The rebels, on the other hand, are highly factionalized. They are now organized, if organized is the word, into at least three coalitions of militias, and even that could quickly change. The first, the Free Syrian Army, is the coalition favored by the United States, and it is the only one being represented at the peace conference. Its position on the battlefield, however, is precarious and has been weakened by defections.
The second coalition, formed just this past autumn, is the Islamic Front, a loose grouping of self-styled moderate Islamists. Some of them were previously affiliated with the Free Syrian Army but have now denounced it. The Islamic Front was allegedly founded with the encouragement and backing of Saudi Arabia, which views the United States as too reluctant to involve itself in the war. (The United States, which fears seeing its supplies—even nonlethal supplies, like food rations and pickup trucks—fall into the hands of Islamists, temporarily cut off the Free Syrian Army in December because the Islamic Front had seized its headquarters and warehouses. Ironically, the act of cutting off supplies to its own clients touched off loud protests from the Saudis, the alleged backers of those who took the supplies. Amends have been made, and at least some of the supplies reportedly returned.) Note, though, that the Saudi connection has been disputed by some analysts. Taken together, the militias of the Islamic Front are now considered the strongest military force on the rebel side. With regard to Geneva II, Islamic Front officials have said that anyone who goes there to talk with representatives of the regime should be tried for treason.

The third sector on the rebel side consists of two rival affiliates of al-Qa’ida. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which originated in Iraq and now operates in both countries, and Jabhat al-Nusrah (the Victory Front), which began as a creature of the Iraqi movement but then refused to merge with it or be controlled by it. Jabhat al-Nusrah appealed to al-Qa’ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and won his endorsement as the official al-Qa’ida branch in Syria, but ISiS does not seem to care.

The most dramatic action in the war during the past few weeks has not been fighting between government troops and the rebels, but rather fighting between ISIS and militias from all the other coalitions, including Jabhat al-Nusrah. Although it is still too early to know how this will turn out, such a degree of divisiveness among the rebel forces can only encourage the regime.

If the war is not yet ripe for resolution, is there any indication of how long it might take? A few weeks back, Prof. Barbara Walter of the University of California, San Diego, reviewed the political science literature on civil wars and drew out a few trends. Most notably, 75 percent of civil wars in the post-1945 era have ended not through negotiation, but only when one side defeated the other. The average length of civil wars has been about ten years. If both sides of a civil war were supported by outside backers, then the war lasted longer. If there were actually more than two sides involved in the fighting, then the war lasted longer. (Obviously, both of these conditions apply in Syria.) Finally, if the war was settled by negotiation, it required the combatants to be able to deal with each other peacefully after the fighting stopped and often required peacekeepers from some outside power to see that they did. So far, no one is lining up at the gate to take on that role in Syria, but it is still early for that.

A final note: A complicating factor is that the fighting in Syria has been unusually intense and a lot of people have died. According to estimates, about 130,000 people have died there in the last three years. Compare that with, say, El Salvador, where 75,000 people died over the course of twelve years. It is possible that the unusual intensity, multiplying costs rapidly, if appropriately distributed among the parties to the conflict, could speed the progress toward desperation and thus make the Syrian war ripe for resolution sooner than might otherwise be expected. But then, on the other hand, it has been estimated that 2 million people died in Sudan’s second civil war, and that one lasted for two decades.