Once again, the launching of an imminent solution for the war on Syria does seem to be on the horizon. Indeed, there is impossibility to hold dialogue between the domestic sides involved in this war, and impossibility to settle the battle on the field. In the meantime, the efforts of the new international envoy are anticipated, as he will have to tour countries and meet with officials before coming up with a vision for the launching of such a solution, knowing that a few hours after he accepted his mission, he became involved in controversy with both the opposition and the authority in Syria. And this will neither facilitate nor hasten his mission. In the meantime, the governmental troops' cannons and air raids will continue to bomb the Syrian cities and countryside, and the tug of war with the opposition will proceed, without there being any sign of a quick settlement. Amid this climate, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov still insists – in order to justify the support offered to the Syrian regime – on announcing the rejection of any military intervention in Syria, whether through a Security Council decision or an initiative presented by the Western states. He is thus dubbing this intervention as an imposition of democracy from the outside by use of cannons. Hence, the Russian foreign minister only perceives the current tragic reality of the Syrian crisis, after the internal calls for reform and democracy turned into an armed confrontation due to the current regime's insistence on using the security solution against the protesters and demonstrators. It is as though the current crisis started ever since it was transferred to the Security Council, months after the eruption of the action. Clearly, the Russian eye does not wish to see all that was done by the peaceful Syrian opposition, and all that was done by the regime to silence it. In 2000, the Syrian oppositionists and intellectuals launched the Damascus Spring Declaration that focused on reform from within and the adoption of peaceful means, in which dialogue with the regime is the main characteristic. After a short time of intermittent dialogue, the authorities launched a political campaign against the oppositionists and put some of them in jail. In 2005, parties, dignitaries and intellectuals issued the Damascus Declaration which reiterated the main axes of the Damascus Spring Declaration, especially in regard to dialogue and peaceful transition. Also then, the authorities did not deem it necessary to engage in any form of dialogue, thus carrying out a wide-scale arrests campaign targeting the signatories of the declaration. In both cases, the charges were related to the weakening of the nation's morale, i.e. conspiracy against the country. And in 2011, bullets were used to respond to the calls for democracy, reform and the fighting of corruption, because the demonstrators were agents collaborating with external sides. These experiences which were endured by the Syrian people throughout a decade under Bashar al-Assad's presidency, and for around two decades under his father's, confirm to all that nipping democracy in the bud – i.e. the use of the security solution – is being conducted through intimidation, arrests and cannons. Therefore, Lavrov's description of the regional and international efforts to stop the violence in Syria as being cannons to impose democracy, applies in reality to the regime's policy, which believes that the silencing of democracy during the current stage can only be done through cannons. This policy was inspired by the Soviet model at the level of armament and training, represented by the diplomacy of battleships, which Moscow is trying to revive in the Russian era. And it seems that the current Syrian regime is the one which cooperated with this new Russian diplomacy, by granting Moscow military facilities and a naval base which is the only one in the Middle East, after the Russian maritime presence retreated all around the world. This is why Moscow, in the name of President Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister, is talking about its strategic interests in the region and the fact that these interests would be at risk in the event of the fall of the Syrian regime, even threatening to send its battleships to the region under the pretext of protecting its experts in Syria. In reality, it is trying to raise the price in the negotiations with the West, even if this were to require the dispatch of battleships whose names were given to a former Soviet method and which are sending messages saying they will not recant its targets. This renders the democracy of the cannons and the diplomacy of battleships identical, akin to two sides of the same coin, in order to prevent change, reform and meeting the aspirations of the Syrian people.
