Syria on the Threshold of "The Big Battle"

Elie Hanna - Al-Akhbar newspaper

A fresh decision by the Arab League to arm Syrian rebels is just the facet of what has been proceeding since some time. In fact, "the big battle" is near, not to end the conflict though, but to improve, with very Syrian tools, the terms of international negotiations.

Syria has now reached a serious watershed that is leading it into a new tunnel. The achievements of the Syrian army are now placed in crosshairs in order to be countered by similar blows. The field versus the field. This reality was not really clinched in the Arab Foreign Ministers' Cairo meeting or in the closing statement calling to gear up the opposition with all possible means. In truth, the Qatari decision preceded this meeting. In Cairo, they just "stamped." The opposition has been titling towards fortifying its presence on the internal scene, ever since Moaz al-Khatib reneged on his initiative and refused to visit Moscow.

Armament did not stop, and what the western top newspapers started to publish came months late. The military scene has been almost puzzled up, with Turkey's "spout" widely open, and flocks of human resources and weaponry are surging from Libya.
These are prelude to what has been already known among both the regime and the opposition: the "big battle" or the "last chance" for the opposition before moving to negotiations with many pluses in hands. This was seemingly the password John Kerry has recently whispered to the parties he met in his latest tour and which was almost a safety rope for the Syrian opposition after it found itself in a battered situation on the ground and on the political level.
However, the Syrian command is tailoring another scenario. The very consistent army is the basis and the policy of patience is thus far hitting big. The itinerants of the presidential palace convey that the regime is dealing nowadays with al-Nusra Front, that is to say with the "terrorism" which the West fears and works on stamping out. "The West has realized the trap," one itinerant says.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has his own view in terms of the armament campaign. What he tells to his visitors, whom he met before the Arab League issued the "war statement," confirms that Damascus analyzes correctly what is happening. Al-Assad saw that arming the opposition came within the frame of a Turkish-Qatari demand for a last chance pending the "big battle," a chance the Coalition seems to be seizing vehemently, after the Arab League's statement was more of a "glass of water for a thirsty man in the desert," or a momentum to move on after matters reached a gridlock due to a failure to score a quality military advance and to drive the Syrian authorities to make concessions.

"The visit of John Kerry indicates a half-progressed US stance," Coalition's politburo member, Khaled Nasser, told al-Akhbar, adding that there is a certain change. It seems that after the Arab League's decision, the Coalition was given a mission: go form a government, as a condition to grant the opposition a seat at the League. Between the failure and constant postponement, the Coalition will meet in Istanbul next week to form this government. Time is now perfect, says Nasser.
As to what they are looking for, he stresses that the Western changing stance in terms of arming the opposition would be conditioned by a more active role of the Free Syrian Army. "These developments are clear messages for the regime so that it realizes that resistance is no more useful," he reckons.

For his part, Samir Nashar from the Coalition has a more cautious opinion. He thinks that the West has become closer to the Coalition and that what ministers espoused at the Arab League was a positive step and an advanced political recognition. However, he says that these are "motivational" factors to achieve gains: a serious plan to arm the opposition is still in its primary stage and there will be talks with the Chief of Staff of the joint forces of the FSA, Salim Idriss, over the plan to distribute weapons and the parties who will possess them.

As the US and the West uphold the reinforcement of the moderate armed opposition, this rhetoric combined with the standpoint of a key side of the opposition which is now interested in confirming, even just in media, that it found a mechanism to provide weaponry to rebels."This joint staff command of the FSA is now working on a huge military project that will be crystallized soon," spokesperson Fahd Masri told al-Akhbar. "After an international treason for two years, something changed actually," he said. He saw that it was now high time for an internal action backed by foreign sides.

He continued that a document would be presented to peace envoy al-Akhdar Ibrahimi in order that he should board it at the Security Council, on the FSA terms hereby demanding to keep aside the air force and use of ballistic missiles. Afterwards, negotiations should kick off based on a prisoners swap deal between both parties. This new FSA command is working on taking grip of the initiative and clinching its role as a key party. Just days ago, Salim Idriss headed to Brussels and demanded armament. "We are united here and all we want is weapons."

Between the visions of the regime, the Coalition, and the FSA, there is also another different oppositionist opinion. Eminent opposition figure, Haytham Mannah, sees that peaceful solution still exists, but that there is now a situation that is more serious than before. He told al-Akhbar that if Hamad is able to bury the political solution, then to hell with this solution. Mannah links the solution to the persistence of the Syrian entity. "This is the last call before the 'Somalization'," he said.

Mannah believes that there are some parties who did not read well Kerry's words. He argues that when Kerry said that military aid would be only provided to the moderate parties in the Coalition, he hence implied that there is a hardliner side. "The government expected to be formed is useless. The general vision does not pay attention to such details. Let Kerry form an interim government," Mannah says derisively. To him, the solution is not the result of sophistication but that of an existential need