The appointment of Lakhdar Brahimi as “joint special representative" to Syria, aimed at turning a page in which UN-Arab cooperation did not achieve any accomplishment to stop the bloodshed in the country. Indeed, joint Envoy Kofi Annan resigned at the beginning of the month, announcing his inability to implement any of the six articles featured in his plan. The former [UN] secretary general thus left, along with the international observers' mission, after he had hoped to secure a breakthrough on the security level with the help of this mission's members, in a manner constituting the first step towards the launching of a dialogue that would pave the way before a transitional phase. He attributed his failure to the non-agreement of the big players at the Security Council, and the non-cooperation of the fighting parties on the ground inside of Syria. The latter are the same actors with whom Brahimi will be dealing, after he changed the name and title and will definitely change the “task," i.e. the approach and the way to handle the crisis, without there being any guarantees for the success of this mission. He changed the name because he did not want to sustain Annan's method, seeing how the latter tackled the settlement starting from the security angle in a country where politics were absent for over four decades, and which has become an open arena for wars by proxy between international and regional players. Hence, it was natural for him not to move one step forward, thus pushing Brahimi to change the name and approach the crisis from the political gate this time around. Brahimi is supposed to open a new page and launch a new experience, while his courage in accepting this mission is raising a series of questions, all unrelated to his diplomatic and political experience. Indeed, the man has a long history in dealing with complex crises involving local, regional and international factors and circumstances, which require a lot of patience, persistence, skills and wisdom. The questions are rather related to the developments of the Syrian crisis and the new facts they have imposed and are still imposing on the positions of all the actors, domestically and abroad. For example, has the time come for a settlement, whether temporary or permanent? Has the dialogue with steel and fire reached a dead end and did the internal parties deplete all the elements of strength? Or has the escalation of the fighting reached a point that allows a political solution to stop the daily bloodshed? Are the near and distant actors convinced that what happened and is still happening on Syrian soil for the last year and a half changed many rules of the game? Did the regime's control and authority not retreat? Did its opponents not grow tired of the disregard of their suffering by the international community and the scattering of their political and military forces? In short, what has occurred at the level of the general scene on the Syrian domestic arena and abroad? Has the time come for a SyrianTaif, which requires an “expert" who was involved in the Lebanese Taif that ended the civil war and the wars of others more than two decades ago, thus launching the political process that is still in place today with all its negative and positive aspects? Can settlements and deals not be sealed except over a burning platter on which the fighting parties are dancing? If the reports related to the dissidence of Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa are true – following the prime minister's departure to Jordan, the placement of some Baath leaders on house arrest and the continuation of the wave of political and military defections – then the regime in Damascus would have lost its last “national" cards, and can no longer convince the Syrians it is defending them against terrorism or the conspiracy. In other words, the regime would have lost its political battle and is about to lose its military battle. Indeed, it received a painful blow with the death of the most prominent pillars of its crisis cell, in parallel to the escalation of the battle in the heart of the two capitals and the strengthening and expansion of the armed opposition. What further reveals its weakness is its ongoing attempt to transfer the crisis across the border, in order to spread anarchy and trigger sectarian and denominational conflicts throughout the region, in a way threatening global peace. It might succeed in its attempts if the disputes inside and outside the region were to proceed over Syria's future and the alternative regime, and over the division of the spoils in a way maintaining the interests of all or most of the actors. Nonetheless, the calculations of the regional and international players at the level of the attempt to export the crisis are much different than Damascus', at a time when the repercussions of the crisis on the region are alarming everyone, i.e. the regime's allies and opponents alike. The refugees flowing to the neighboring states have started to constitute time bombs and are provoking domestic problems, whether in Lebanon, Jordan or Turkey. As for the events recently witnessed in Lebanon, they increased the sectarian and denominational tensions, from the arrest of former Minister Michel Samaha – one of President Bashar al-Assad's advisors – on charges of preparing to detonate sectarian and denominational conflict in the country, to the kidnapping by a Lebanese clan of a group of Syrians affiliated with the opposition, to the point where Lebanon is on the brink of sliding toward war once again! On the other hand, the situation in Jordan is not any different, as it is witnessing the influx of refugees into its territories and border skirmishes that are threatening a national security that is already suffering from acute political conflicts impacted by the developments on the entire Arab arena, not to mention the resident concern whose effects are increased by the stalemate affecting the settlement and the rise of the Islamic movements. In Iraq, where violence is preventing the wounds from healing, it is inhabited by concerns surrounding the renewal of the sectarian conflict, if ever the collapse of the regime in Damascus were to revive the dreams of numerous Sunni powers regarding their ability to reinstate the pre-American invasion situation. For their part, the Turks are not concealing their fears over the possible emergence of another Kurdish entity in northern Syria, similar to the Kurdistan province in Iraq, as well as over the possible division of Syria and its effects on the Turkish formula. Such fears are not far from Iran, which is built on an alarming demographic mosaic fueled by the announced and repressed internal conflict, not to mention the effects which Syria's division might have on Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan. These facts and concerns are restricting the Syrian regime's wishes and plans, while even the possibility of establishing an Alawi strip on the western coast remains weak, considering that regardless of its military capabilities, they will be lesser than those of the majority to topple such a project which failed in the twenties despite the direct support offered by the French mandate. In short, the regime is no longer able to reject the terms of any settlement which convinces its Iranian, Russian or Chinese allies. So will it maneuver as usual to waste time? Has it not depleted this weapon as it has almost depleted its military machine? Among the new circumstances surrounding the Syrian crisis was the staging of the extraordinary Islamic Solidarity Summit in Holy Mecca a few days ago. This summit addressed more than one message to more than one side, the first of whom was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who undoubtedly felt that the position of the Islamic world toward the Syrian crisis is standing behind the general Arab position, which is supporting the departure of the regime in Damascus – at a time when Iran stands on the opposite side. This is something which Ahmadinejad does not need for now, in light of the mounting sanctions targeting Iran and the war threats being issued every day. The same feeling prevails in Russia, which is not only facing problems at the level of its relationships with a number of Arab states – at the head of the which are the Gulf Cooperation Council states – but might also see its relations with the Islamic world become similar to those of the Soviet Union with this world following the invasion of Afghanistan at the end of the seventies. In the meantime, its ties with its partners at the Security Council are growing increasingly complicated, after the member states in the Action Group for Syria (except for China) rejected its invitation to hold a session and discuss the current stage and its developments. This revealed the depth of the divisions over the solution formula in Syria. These new Islamic and international positions were recently joined by an Egyptian appearance that might signal Cairo's attempt to regain a leading regional role which remained absent for decades. Hence, President Muhammad Morsi suggested the establishment of a Contact Group including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey to settle the crises in the region. For his part, Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi did not take too long to point to an inclination to form a special committee including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Iran “to draw up clear frameworks to handle the Syrian problem in a swift and drastic way." Such an Egyptian call and the appointment of Brahimi as special representative, pave the way before political dialogue on the regional level in order to alleviate the acute confrontation between Iran and some Arabs, while the major players can rely on this dialogue to spare them from an intervention they do not wish to carry out. It is worth mentioning at this level that the Americans, European and Turks did not change their positions toward the Syrian crisis, despite the regime's use of its military aircrafts to bomb the cities, the mobile massacres, Annan's failure and the decision to end the mission of the international observers. These new developments affecting the Syrian crisis might reveal the need of the external sides for some sort of truce, or their depletion of all the pretexts to justify their stands and cover up their policies toward this crisis. This might allow the special joint representative to test the maturity of the circumstances for a settlement or a deal via a SyrianTaif. If this is not the case, his mission will face a worse fate than that of his predecessor Annan. Eventually, the Syrian domestic events will have the last say in determining this mission's future, considering that the head of the regime – which has lost and is losing every day its most prominent elements of strength – might have lost its decision-making power in favor of those controlling the military machine on the ground, just like its opponents who control the opposite machine are without a head or a command to issue the decisions!
