"...a transition plan and take it to Assad and the Syrian opposition. This road map would call for a presidential election to choose Assad’s successor, plus a parliamentary ballot and a new constitution — with a timeline for achieving these milestones.
Assad would presumably depart for Russia, which is said to have offered him exile; the Syrian dictator is rumored to have transferred $6 billion in Syrian reserves to Moscow already. Under this scenario, Assad presumably could avoid international prosecution for war crimes. Iran is also said to have offered exile to Assad and his family.
To contain the bloodletting that would follow Assad’s ouster, Annan is said to favor a detailed plan for reforming the security forces, similar to reforms in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism." Ignatius
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The only "gripe" I have with the map above is that it conflates the Alawi religious homeland with areas inhabited by actual Shia Syrians. The two areas adjoin. IMO Alawis are not Shia or even really Muslims any more than are the Yazidis or the Druze. To make matters even more confusing, the Shia are known in Turkey as "Alavi."
Nice try on the plan, but I doubt that this will be accepted by the Baathi/Shia/Sunni establishment in Syria. Once again, this idea is based on the notion that the Assad family and Bashar in particular are the problem. That is not the case. The ethno-religious mozaic in Syria is the problem. The Alawis and the more or less acculturated and wealthy Sunnis who now run Syria are not going to allow themselves to be dictated to and ruled by people whom they see as medieval in thinking as well as long standing "tribal" enemies.
The general conception of such contests within the ME is that they are always zero sum games. This one is seen that way by the participants. That is why they want the other side vanquished and they have no interest at all in compromise as a solution.
Westerners just don't "get it," and the locals like it that way. pl
http://geocurrents.info/geopolitics/syrias-ethno-religious-complexity-and-potential-turmoil
RE: [The general conception of such contests within the me(na) is that they are always zero sum games. This one is seen that way by the participants. That is why they want the other side vanquished and they have no interest at all in compromise as a solution....Westerners just don't "get it"]
Col. sir,
It's just that Caucasians have this sacred ideal that due to the Westphalian order of the "way-things-ought-to-be" but is in reality divorced with the way-things-are.
http://www.versobooks.com/books/406-the-myth-of-1648
Maybe you folks in the West are better off (re)reading Thucydides, Machiavelli, Clausewitz & et. al. the rest of the Realists.
Speak Victorian, think pagan, hm?
Posted by: YT | 12 June 2012 at 02:23 AM