Developments connected to the Syrian crisis in politics and on the field have shown, over the past few days, that the situation was not only headed towards destructive military escalation, but also towards a political dead-end that will only make the infighting fiercer – this in a way that drives one to wonder, not about how to possibly emerge from such a major predicament, but rather, as has become legitimate to wonder, about the possibility of a historical transformation of Syria's situation, as a nation and as a unified state. At the level of the field and the domestic scene, the operations carried out by the regime's troops have shifted from what was referred to as “preserving law and order" to the systematic destruction of residential areas and to mass displacement and killing, through the use of long-range heavy artillery and the air force. This means that the direction the regime is taking is that of inflicting the greatest possible extent of human casualties and displacement of local inhabitants, in addition to inflicting the greatest possible extent of destruction to the property of those inhabitants. This indicates the implicit recognition that such inhabitants no longer fall within the scope of the regime's interest as citizens, and have turned into enemies. The increasing number of defections at the level of the regime's troops thus seems to indicate a growing feeling among defectors that they have become instruments for turning their own people into enemies, and cannot see how they could return to coexisting with their communities under a regime such as this. On the other hand, the operations carried out by the opposition, which is becoming increasingly “militarized", are taking on the form of a civil war – in the sense that such operations are no longer limited to protecting protesters from the regime's use of force, and now seek to gain additional “liberated" areas, with what this means in terms of repercussions on the social fabric and of further fragmentation. And what are the recent acts of vengeance that have taken place in Aleppo but an example of such a threat? The extent of concern is made no lesser by the fact that those targeted for revenge are Sunnis, or that the opposition has condemned these acts. Indeed, minorities, all sects included, are concerned about their fate, and the armed opposition has not been able to provide, on the field, what would reassure these minorities, some of whose members have been forced to find refuge outside the areas controlled by the opposition, out of fear from real or presumed threats. This means that the battle, as indicated by the names of the “brigades" waging it on the ground, is increasingly taking on the form of sectarian fighting, which by its very nature does away with pluralism in all its forms, be they sectarian or political. Within such a framework, the armed opposition does not provide, in all of its many and contradictory statements, any guarantees of unified action towards achieving the goals of the protest movement, especially in terms of pluralism, democracy and the acceptance of others. At the regional level, and at a time when the collapse of Annan's plan has become patent, it has been noticed that the forces concerned with the crisis and active in it have also been heading towards escalation, to the extent of setting their military arsenals in motion and threatening to intervene militarily. This has especially been noticed with regard to Turkey and Iran, both of whom have historically taken the direction of gaining influence in the region on the basis of confessional division. In addition to skirmishes at the Syrian border with both Lebanon and Jordan, Israel is openly speaking of preparations in the Golan. It is also speaking of preparations to take action in case of a threat to Syria's weapons of mass destruction, whether by being put to use or being seized by opposition groups – which brings Israel into the Syrian arena, in addition to its preparations to take some form of action against what it considers to be an Iranian nuclear threat. All of this indicates that the time to discuss solutions has become much more far away than it has even been since the start of the Syrian crisis – especially as the stance taken by the Arab League, as expressed most recently in the latest resolution adopted at the United Nations General Assembly, excludes any solution being reached in the presence of the current regime. At the international level, on the other hand, the best expression of the inability to drive towards a plan that could be implemented has been the resignation of UN-AL Envoy Kofi Annan, out of frustration and despair. And there does not seem to be on the horizon any indication of the possibility of an understanding being reached at the Security Council level that would impose a regression of acts of killing first, and then a drive towards a political solution. In fact, what is happening is exactly the opposite. Thus, while Western and Arab aid to the opposition is increasing, Russia is increasingly engaging in desperately defending the regime, in addition to providing it, as does Iran, with the means to maintain its new approach – considering Syria to be the current testing ground for a Cold War which Moscow feels it must advance in, after it lost all of its positions in the world as a result of losing the previous Cold War. What is dangerous about this approach – the Cold War approach – is that it has in the past, after every civil war, ended up leading to division in terms of influence as well as on the ground. Indeed, it is driving the local parties to abandon any wager on unity, in favor of the wager on seizing locations. And that is what is threatening Syria today.
