Syrian Peace

In many of my past posts I have spelled out plans (paths ways) to peace. We are now seeing some of the efforts taking place that should have been taken four years ago. These efforts are sitting down and talking with a broad coalition and the main parties being the military elites. Without the strength of teamwork amongst the elite military power there was no hope for an end to violence. Sadly the violence will have to increase for the short term. The next step is to put people on the ground. There is no getting around this fact. This was a reality four years ago and has only grown since. The team work of United Nations agencies and other NGO’s will have to organize and prepare for a lengthy rebuild. Yet the issue of Assad will be a sticking point, so how do we get past that point? Assad must be voted out by the people. This will give the people the ultimate point of control and allow the process of bringing legitimacy back into democratic society. Now what needs to be understood is that elections can not take place within the next two years. The two year wait allows for people to return, communities to rebuild, power vacuums to settle and a solid education of what the people want for government leadership to take hold. From my experience two years has often been too short of a time frame but it is a target. On a regional scale we must understand that Syria will remain in a state of harm as long as Iraq is in chaos as well. The two countries need to have a strong working relationship focused on mutual peace. Of course the entire region is in the same situation. Since we do not have the courage to encapsulate the entire region in a ceasefire/weapons ban we must work with one country at a time. This will be done by strengthening all borders as strongly as possible. As mentioned in past articles, there will be a strong need for an alternate governing system that focuses on security first and social norms second. What this means is that the international forces on the ground are there to enforce the ceasefire agreement first (weapons checks). The social factors such as education, hate literature, religion, etc… are to be dealt with by local authorities and non military NGO agencies. This is a very simplistic outline as the logistics become very complex, to be truthful it is already very complex. Who goes in, where, when, how are all to be determined. What will most likely take place is that the airport which Russia is currently using will be a staging site. Next Damascus will become another staging point as will Aleppo and Homs. I hope that Syria will return to peace as soon as possible.