Integrating Syria back into the Arab fold is a key element of the Arab League meeting in Saudi Arabia next week. Analysts, though, say there isn't a "one size fits all solution" to the conflict-ridden country because of the various political and military actors on the ground.
The Arab League’s recent decision to reinstate Syria comes after 12 years of conflict. More than 500,000 Syrians have been killed, while half of the country’s prewar population of some 23 million are displaced. Analysts say 90% of Syrians are now destitute, with much infrastructure destroyed.
While Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have renewed diplomatic ties with Syria, others, including Qatar, Kuwait and Morocco have not. Both the United States and Britain expressed reservations on readmitting Syria to the Arab League without serious concessions from the Bashar Assad regime. Neither has Syria committed to political reform or taken responsibility for war crimes, nor has it ensured the safe return of 6 million refugees.
Independent Jordanian analyst Osama al-Sharif wrote in the Saudi Arab News, “More than a decade of failed attempts to find a political settlement to end this brutal civil war has led to a deadly stalemate, with parts of the country under the regime’s control and others under direct or indirect foreign occupation or influence.”
To try to resolve the crisis, Arab states are taking a “step-by-step” approach, al-Sharif says, which will include pressing for political reforms, return of the displaced and the dismantling of a drug-producing and smuggling network that has turned Syria into a narco-state. He says Jordan and Iraq want to secure their borders with Syria “to control smuggling, as well as to terminate the pockets of Daesh [Islamic State group] fighters that continue to pose a threat to both.”
Lebanese analyst Dania Koleilat Khatib told VOA that Assad, in fact, has little real control over Syria because of the presence of Iranian and Russian forces that have bolstered him, also of the Turks in the northwest and the U.S. in the northeast aiding the Kurds and Syriac Christians to fight Islamic State militants. Khatib argues that there is no one solution for the entirety of Syria. Perhaps an initial step is to make deals with each of these parties to help bring about stability, she said. Khatib is the president of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building in Beirut.
“You can’t have one deal for whole Syria because the landscape is different. So, you need to have these localized deals that will stabilize the country, that will offer refugees to return, that will allow local development for people to have some economy. They need the conditions. Now, there are no conditions for the Syrians to decide on anything. This is the first phase waiting for the second phase: the shape of the political regime, the constitution,” she said.
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit says much depends on the Assad government’s willingness to move in the right direction “towards Arab countries, and in tackling the pressing problems within Syria itself.”
Analyst Raghida Dergham of the Beirut Institute said many believe that Arab states may have pledged “to help rebuild Syria, to ease its isolation and to create a bridge between it and the outside world,” in remarks to the UAE’s The National newspaper.
She and other analysts suggest such developments are predicated on the gradual containment of Iranian and Turkish influence in Syria as well as binding commitments from the Assad government.
