In a few words, the United States has drafted a roadmap for the Syrian regime, so that it may emerge from its worsening crisis, suggesting that it holds the magic key to make the protesters leave the streets. The features of such a roadmap were clarified by US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy. Flournoy said: “Syria must distance itself from Iran and join the Gulf states, as well as move forward in the peace process with Israel”. The lady did not need any more than this to explain. She was preceded to this by other officials and diplomats from the Republican and then the Democratic Administration, even if the ways in which and the times at which this was said differed. This is in addition to the fact that the alternatives to this roadmap, which the Europeans adopted with even greater enthusiasm, have been and continue to be the only measure of Washington's approval, its silence over human rights violations, repression and tyranny, and its alliances with dictatorships. In other words, what is required of Syria is distancing itself from Iran and moving from supporting “terrorism” – as represented by Hezbollah, Hamas and the factions of the Palestinian opposition – to confronting Iran's influence. And it is no secret to anyone that the United States, Europe and some Arab regimes have made use of various means in working to dismantle the Syrian-Iranian alliance, which the Jordanian Monarch considered to be the core of the “Shiite Crescent”, stretching from Tehran to Beirut through Baghdad. The Syrian regime considers such a roadmap to be a “conspiracy” targeting it from within, after the failure of pressure on it from abroad. Yet its placing what has taken place in Daraa and other cities within the framework of such a conspiracy, without turning to the people's demands and by laying the blame on others, is a way of evading meeting the needs of the people, which President Bashar Al-Assad acknowledged and took some steps towards achieving. It seems that he will not be given the opportunity to implement them, as there are many parties in Syria that oppose him on an ideological, religious or political basis, and the people's rightful demands are the least of their concerns. In fact, they take them as a pretext to continue pressuring him, unmindful of the consequences. The slogans raised by such parties at protests and their statements in the media confirm that they seek to take away his popular legitimacy (a legitimacy Assad had always boasted of), as a prelude to taking away his international legitimacy, a process which has taken its first steps at the Security Council and in American and European sanctions. And had those parties been able take stronger measures, they would have. But what are the West and some of the Arabs wagering on? The fact of the matter is that the United States and Europe have been confronted by Nationalist and Leftist (in the days of the Soviet Union) movements by allying with Islamists, and they consider that returning to encouraging them would help in confronting Iran and extremists. Indeed, ever since Barack Obama arrived at the White House, Washington became convinced that encouraging “Muslim moderation” to take political action, in order to confront extremism on the one hand, and rebellious dictatorships on the other, was the only way out of the constant state of crisis in the Middle East. It is within such a framework that repeated Turkish “advice” to Assad, as well as Ankara embracing Syria's Muslim Brotherhood, can be placed. Turkey represents the Islamic model wished for by the Europeans and Americans. Its success at being a Muslim nation and a member of NATO at the same time entices them to generalize its experience and turn it into a role-model for others. Yet there are many obstacles preventing this, especially in Syria. Indeed, Syria's sectarian, religious and ethnic mosaic is no fertile soil for applying such a model. And the division currently taking place in this region, which could turn into civil wars, is plain evidence of this. The milestones of the new-yet-old American roadmap are in need of translation into Arabic, and of road signs that make clear the dangers of slipping into sectarian wars that will not leave a single moderate clinging to his moderation.
