On the anniversary of Palestine's Nakba, the Arab world is swimming in a sea of crises and blood. Indeed, the massacres' hours of darkness are extending and the dagger of sectarian and denominational divisions is further cutting into the veins of countries that were the “heart of pan-Arabism" or the Eastern gate for the deterrence of ambitions. In the meantime, Egypt is swaying to the beat of the Muslim Brotherhood, ailing Tunisia needs more than one recovery room, and Libya in the post-revolution is getting lost underneath the hat of the militias. On the anniversary of the catastrophic and bitter decades witnessed by Palestine, with which the regimes of catastrophes traded, it was hoped that the Arab spring revolutions would mark salvation from the conflict with the other, the identity complex, and the search for one's national self, and that there would be change in Syria after the sea of blood that cost the lives of a hundred thousand among its people, if not more. Are these catastrophes greater than Palestine's loss? The answer is prevented by the difficult chapters throughout the region, one whose windows and doors are open to the unknown and to conflicts that might ruin whatever is left of the eroding immunity of numerous Arab entities. But the major question remains: Why have the people of the region not learned the lesson, and is oppressive tyranny alone the other facet of ignorance that protects the dictator? On the threshold of catastrophes, the Iranian Guide does not relinquish his “sponsorship" of the Arab and Muslim rights and his concern over their interests. He is thus addressing warnings in all directions in the context of his strenuous efforts to book a seat on the settlement train in Syria, whether through the Geneva II Conference if it is held, or by other means. And while the Iranian roadmap for the solution resembles – with its Syrian blood – the Baathist method in exploiting the neighboring states as cards in the game of interests, and while Tehran does not believe that the region can tolerate the government's collapse in Damascus, the announcement by the Salafi Jihadist Movement in Jordan of the Syrian Zarqawi's (Al-Nusra Front) decision to place the fighters of the Lebanese Hezbollah at the top of the front's list of military targets, reveals there will be further conflicts, killings and sectarian fighting. Without going once again into the reasons behind the party's insistence on defending the Syrian regime – i.e. to emulate Tehran's position – the Iranian attempts to open the Golan Front against Israel following the launching of Jihad to save the Syrian regime, must be provoking numerous suspicions. What is certain is that the underlying message behind the Iranian command's use of the Golan card is firstly to call on Netanyahu's government to stop bombing the heart of Damascus, which is already exhausted with the deterrence of the oppositionists, and secondly to inform whomever it may concern in the West that Tehran will remain in whichever case part of any solution to stop the bloodbath in Syria. Hence, there is a Jihad against Israel, a Jihad with a Zarqawi character against Hezbollah's fighters, the Jihad of the Syrian regime against the opposition and the infiltrating terrorism, the party's fighting to prevent the fall of the capital of rejectionism, Moscow's persistent defense of the fate of legitimacy, and the disregarding of the cries of the distressed civilians due to Russian-made missiles and bombs. The time has come for a Russian-American understanding to launch the solution train in Geneva II, one whose take-off is obstructed by complexes related to who will attend the conference, who will negotiate with whom and over which transitional phase. In the meantime, no sane person believes that the head of the Syrian regime will assign a governmental delegation or a delegation of figures close to him to negotiate over his stripping of his prerogatives. And while Washington appears optimistic without any Russian concessions, the regime is definitely not convinced by its threats related to the arming of the opposition if it were to obstruct the course of the Geneva meeting. For its part, Paris is continuing to mope, and Netanyahu is returning from Moscow while bragging about Putin's confidence in him and the inauguration of a personal contact line between the two leaders to uphold regional stability. The joke is that while in Kremlin, the Israeli prime minister appeared to be a caller for peace and to be appalled by the bloody scenes coming from Syria, whereas the second joke is that Damascus does not know the names of the negotiators which American Secretary of State John Kerry said it gave to the Russians, which is why it is awaiting the details! What is certain is that the Arab-Turkish six-party meeting held in Abu Dhabi addressed a clear message to Moscow regarding the exclusion of any role by President Al-Assad during the stage of the transitional government. On the other hand, Iranian rowdiness was seen along the Geneva course to confirm Tehran's inevitable presence. Among these rowdy acts was its announcement of warnings to Jordan against a trap which might be set up for it in Syria and other warnings to Qatar, and Iran's rush to prepare for the Syria Friends' Conference the minute Amman confirmed its hosting of the Conference of the Syrian People's Friends in a few days. For all those reasons, Paris' pessimism might be justified, considering that neither the agreement of the major players over the headline of the Geneva conference is enough to convince the sides involved in the conflict in Syria to replace killings with good intentions and reach the inescapable end of any revolution, nor is the Iranian counterattack a mere temporary volunteerism. The Syrians' Nakba is one of many catastrophes.
