The weapons that have begun to reach the Free Army will change the situation on the ground. This was said by this army's Chief of Staff Salim Edriss, who paved the way before the meeting of the Syria's Friends group in Doha two days ago through a meeting he held for the first time with Islamic organizations that are active in the northern and northwestern parts of the country. This ought to give him a backup that will ensure more of the guarantees requested by the latter Friends, at least to place the weapons under the same headline. Through their pressures, the Americans and the Europeans had pushed the opposition's National Coalition to expand its ranks a few weeks ago, and today, they are trying to get the fighting organizations to engage in further coordination on the ground, in order to facilitate the delivery of the required equipment. This development, which affected the position of Washington and its partners in Europe and the region, will not achieve a settlement on the ground. Their goal is rather to ensure balance, after it was undermined by the Qussayr battle and the shifting of the attention towards Aleppo, Damascus and other positions and cities. This arming decision means that the Friends, who gathered in the Qatari capital, will not allow Aleppo and the other regions to face the same fate as Qussayr's. This time around, the defeat will not affect the fighters as much as it will affect the regional and international actors who are also waging their own wars by proxy amid this Syrian mayhem, against Russia and Iran. For their part, the leaderships of the two countries will not hesitate to provide the regime with more power tools and raise the level of defiance. Hence, everyone has practically entered an armament race, whose horizons and limits will be determined the nature and surprises of the battles on the ground. This is due to the fact that war is not subjected to accurate calculations and expectations, as it is the case with any political or diplomatic process. In addition, the internal powers fighting on the ground have the final say in determining the outcome of this war and the limits of its political exploitation, at a time when the role of the external powers is almost limited to the provision of ammunition and political support. Moscow is blaming the Americans and Europeans for their inability to push the opposition to the negotiations table, while the latter are blaming it for its inability to convince the regime to stop the fight and head towards a political solution, as long as its repeated calls on it to introduce serious reforms have failed. Therefore, the fate of the Geneva 2 conference will remain linked to the balance of powers on the ground and the meeting will unlikely be held before August, if not later than that. This is due to the fact that the balance of powers not only includes the Syrian parties, while war is not just between the regime and the revolutionaries. There are sectarian powers engaged in the confrontation in the context of a sectarian conflict sweeping the entire region, between Iran and its allies on one hand and a long queue of Arab states on the other. There is also a confrontation between Washington and Moscow, which is not only displeased with the arming of the Free Army, but also with the deployment of the Patriot shield in Jordan after Turkey. Consequently, the flow of weapons to Syria might not stop and the shipments of weapons and men will continue to arrive from Russia and Iran, which interfered early on to support the regime in Damascus. As for the United States and its European and Arab partners, they will discover that the arming of the opposition will lead them towards further gradual intervention, which clearly means that the crisis will extend before the desired settlement is ripe. And it is feared that the situation on the ground has exceeded the formulas that were originally debated to ensure a domestic political settlement. The crisis is no longer limited to Syria, seeing how foreign intervention toppled the geographic border demarcated by the Sykes-Picot agreement about a century ago for what used to be dubbed Greater Syria or the Jewel of the Ottoman Crown, as it used to be called by the Sultanate's population before the division of its remains in the wake of World War I. The border is thus wide open, without any consideration for the sovereignties of states. And one look at Syria's neighboring countries reveals that the security and sovereign facet of the French-British agreement has almost indefinitely collapsed, from Jordan to Iraq and from southern Turkey to Lebanon. Indeed, the movement of fighters, refugees, arms traders and smugglers in both directions is without control, due to the inability to fully contain it. At this level, neither the Patriot shield - established by NATO in Turkey or by the Americans in Jordan - nor the desired settlement will be able to impose the respect of the border. The international community was late to intervene in a decisive way to settle the crisis, at a time when fear over Syria's division and fall in the hands of extremist movements accompanied Washington's reluctant position and was the object of warnings issued by Moscow as well. Today, this fear was replaced by a more dangerous and lethal one affecting the entire region. Four decades ago, President Hafez al-Assad dispatched his troops to Lebanon, firstly to prevent civil war from reaching Syria, and secondly to seize an opportunity which may not come around again to restore this brotherly province to the lap of the Greater State from which it was taken following the Sykes-Picot accord. Iraq and Jordan were not far away from what happened in Lebanon throughout 15 years, while the Gulf states - which were involved in the war one way or the other - played a role, or several ones, at this level. They were also present in all the efforts to seek a settlement, ones which ended with the Taif Accord. But today the issue is much greater and more dangerous. The fire is burning at the heart of the region and not on one of its edges, and has erupted without any warnings, expectations or speculations. In Syria, and since the beginning of the action, the Kurds committed to their observer position while awaiting the outcome of the situation, considering that the deeper the chaos and division run in the state, the more their chances to follow in the footsteps of their brothers in the Iraqi Kurdistan province - from whom they have been receiving advice and counsel - are enhanced. And there is no need to talk about the Syrian coast and the alternative plan to which the regime might resort if its opponents are able to push it out of Damascus, or about the extensions of this area and the project to connect it to the Lebanese Bekaa and South. There is also no need to talk about what is taking place in the Iraqi Sunni provinces against the government in Baghdad or about what Turkey is enduring in its southern province, where the Alawites are mobilized against the opening of the border before the refugees and the political and military opposition movements. Far away from this direct border, sectarian alignment is emerging throughout the region, from Yemen and its Houthis to Bahrain and the Shiite gatherings in the Gulf, which are perceived by Iran as being a confrontation arena with the Gulf states whenever the latter increase their level of involvement in the Syrian crisis. The issue has exceeded President Barack Obama's fear from Al-Nusra Front, unless the latter is more dangerous and extreme than the Taliban movement with which he is preparing to negotiate in Doha imminently! It has also exceeded President Vladimir Putin's fear from vacuum in case President Al-Assad were to leave. There are friction lines surfacing in all the neighboring states. International circles are warning that the Syrian refugees in Jordan have started to constitute one fifth of its population and are posing a direct threat to its social and economic security. But what do these circles have to say about Lebanon, where the number of refugees has exceeded one million in a country where the signs of sectarian friction have started to resurface from Sidon to Tripoli, going through neighborhoods in Beirut, the Bekaa, the Hermel border and Akkar. There is a threat facing the demographic map in this country, and the matters that the Lebanese are ashamed to tackle in public - as usual – are being addressed in their private gatherings, i.e. the fact that the Sunnis have started to constitute more than half the population, when one adds to Lebanon's Sunnis those of the Palestinian camps and the refugees. And a large faction among the latter does not conceal its disgruntlement towards Hezbollah's implication in the war in Syria. The party might be overestimating its ability to avoid strife by relying on powers capable of sparing it from direct sectarian confrontation in those regions, and might be misestimating the outcome of the confrontation it has opened on itself throughout the Arab world. And the situation in Iraq is not any different, considering that sectarian alignment has reached its peak, while the borders of the regions or provinces herald the resumption of the war that prevailed in the mid-nineties and whose effects are still visible until this day. In short, those relying on a settlement in Syria based on the quotas system adopted in Lebanon and then in Iraq, are neglecting the fact that this formula kept the fire burning beneath the ashes and is still reviving it from time to time. Indeed, no matter how hard Lebanon's Christians try to stress their participation and insistence on the Taif Accord, a large portion of them feels disadvantaged and marginalized and believes that the accord was sealed over the rubble of their defeat, the last facets of which were the fighting rounds in the so-called Eastern regions between General Michel Aoun and Dr. Samir Geagea. They also know, deep inside, that the political game is being run by the Sunnis and Shiites who are imposing the rules. Their situation is much similar to that of the Iraqi Sunnis who have resisted the government in Baghdad for a long time. And when they had enough of the extremists and their resistance, they - along with the Awakening councils - signed a deal with their Shiite partners. But soon enough, they started raising their voices again to demand the end of their being deprived from participating in the decision-making process and that they be given their share in the various departments and institutions. The question at this level is the following: Does this formula of quotas encourage the Alawites to accept a settlement in which the numerical majority will continue to prevail no matter how much it is embellished and softened? And if the quotas system is no longer a valid cure for the division of the same state between the sects and denominations, how can the greater border drawn by Mr. Sykes and Mr. Picot about a century ago be restored? Will the settlement be secured with the division of what is already divided after more wars and massacres?
