By Sharmine Narwani
Source: RT
On March 23, 2011, at the very start of what we now call the ‘Syrian conflict,’ two young men – Sa’er Yahya Merhej and Habeel Anis Dayoub – were gunned down in the southern Syrian city of Daraa.

Merhej and Dayoub were neither civilians, nor were they in opposition to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. They were two regular soldiers in the ranks of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

Shot by unknown gunmen, Merhej and Dayoub were the first of eighty-eight soldiers killed throughout Syria in the first month of this conflict– in Daraa, Latakia, Douma, Banyas, Homs, Moadamiyah, Idlib, Harasta, Suweida, Talkalakh and the suburbs of Damascus.

According to the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, the combined death toll for Syrian government forces was 2,569 by March 2012, the first year of the conflict. At that time, the UN’s total casualty count for all victims of political violence in Syria was 5,000.

These numbers paint an entirely different picture of events in Syria. This was decidedly not the conflict we were reading about in our headlines – if anything, the ‘parity’ in deaths on both sides even suggests that the government used ‘proportionate’ force in thwarting the violence.

But Merhej and Dayoub’s deaths were ignored. Not a single Western media headline told their story – or that of the other dead soldiers. These deaths simply didn’t line up with the Western ‘narrative’ of the Arab uprisings and did not conform to the policy objectives of Western governments.

For American policymakers, the “Arab Spring” provided a unique opportunity to unseat the governments of adversary states in the Middle East. Syria, the most important Arab member of the Iran-led ‘Resistance Axis,’ was target number one.

To create regime-change in Syria, the themes of the “Arab Spring” needed to be employed opportunistically – and so Syrians needed to die.

The “dictator” simply had to “kill his own people” – and the rest would follow.

How words kill

Four key narratives were spun ad nauseam in every mainstream Western media outlet, beginning in March 2011 and gaining steam in the coming months.

– The Dictator is killing his “own people.”

– The protests are “peaceful.”

– The opposition is “unarmed.”

– This is a “popular revolution.”

Pro-Western governments in Tunisia and Egypt had just been ousted in rapid succession in the previous two months – and so the ‘framework’ of Arab Spring-style, grass roots-powered regime-change existed in the regional psyche. These four carefully framed ‘narratives’ that had gained meaning in Tunisia and Egypt, were now prepped and loaded to delegitimize and undermine any government at which they were lobbed.

But to employ them to their full potential in Syria, Syrians had to take to the streets in significant numbers and civilians had to die at the hands of brutal security forces. The rest could be spun into a “revolution” via the vast array of foreign and regional media outlets committed to this “Arab Spring” discourse.

Protests, however, did not kick off in Syria the way they had in Tunisia and Egypt. In those first few months, we saw gatherings that mostly numbered in the hundreds – sometimes in the thousands – to express varies degrees of political discontent. Most of these gatherings followed a pattern of incitement from Wahhabi-influenced mosques during Friday’s prayers, or after local killings that would move angry crowds to congregate at public funerals.

A member of a prominent Daraa family explained to me that there was some confusion over who was killing people in his city – the government or “hidden parties.” He explains that, at the time, Daraa’s citizens were of two minds: “One was that the regime is shooting more people to stop them and warn them to finish their protests and stop gathering. The other opinion was that hidden militias want this to continue, because if there are no funerals, there is no reason for people to gather.”

With the benefit of hindsight, let’s look at these Syria narratives five years into the conflict:

We know now that several thousand Syrian security forces were killed in the first year, beginning March 23, 2011. We therefore also know that the opposition was “armed” from the start of the conflict. We have visual evidence of gunmen entering Syria across the Lebanese border in April and May 2011. We know from the testimonies of impartial observers that gunmen were targeting civilians in acts of terrorism and that “protests” were not all “peaceful”.

The Arab League mission conducted a month-long investigation inside Syria in late 2011 and reported:

“In Homs, Idlib and Hama, the observer mission witnessed acts of violence being committed against government forces and civilians that resulted in several deaths and injuries. Examples of those acts include the bombing of a civilian bus, killing eight persons and injuring others, including women and children, and the bombing of a train carrying diesel oil. In another incident in Homs, a police bus was blown up, killing two police officers. A fuel pipeline and some small bridges were also bombed.”

Longtime Syrian resident and Dutch priest Father Frans van der Lugt, who was killed in Homs in April 2014, wrote in January 2012:

“From the start the protest movements were not purely peaceful. From the start I saw armed demonstrators marching along in the protests, who began to shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels.”

A few months earlier, in September 2011, he had observed:

“From the start there has been the problem of the armed groups, which are also part of the opposition…The opposition on the street is much stronger than any other opposition. And this opposition is armed and frequently employs brutality and violence, only in order then to blame the government.”

Furthermore, we also now know that whatever Syria was, it was no “popular revolution.” The Syrian army has remained intact, even after blanket media coverage of mass defections. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians continued to march in unreported demonstrations in support of the president. The state’s institutions and government and business elite have largely remained loyal to Assad. Minority groups – Alawites, Christians, Kurds, Druze, Shia, and the Baath Party, which is majority Sunni – did not join the opposition against the government. And the major urban areas and population centers remain under the state’s umbrella, with few exceptions.

A genuine “revolution,” after all, does not have operation rooms in Jordan and Turkey. Nor is a “popular” revolution financed, armed and assisted by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the US, UK and France.

Sowing “Narratives” for geopolitical gain

The 2010 US military’s Special Forces Unconventional Warfare manual states:

“The intent of US [Unconventional Warfare] UW efforts is to exploit a hostile power’s political, military, economic, and psychological vulnerabilities by developing and sustaining resistance forces to accomplish US strategic objectives…For the foreseeable future, US forces will predominantly engage in irregular warfare (IW) operations.”

A secret 2006 US State Department cable reveals that Assad’s government was in a stronger position domestically and regionally than in recent years, and suggests ways to weaken it: “The following provides our summary of potential vulnerabilities and possible means to exploit them…” This is followed by a list of “vulnerabilities” – political, economic, ethnic, sectarian, military, psychological – and recommended “actions” on how to “exploit” them.

This is important. US unconventional warfare doctrine posits that populations of adversary states usually have active minorities that respectively oppose and support their government, but for a “resistance movement” to succeed, it must sway the perceptions of the large “uncommitted middle population” to turn on their leaders. Says the manual (and I borrow liberally here from a previous article of mine):

To turn the “uncommitted middle population” into supporting insurgency, UW recommends the “creation of atmosphere of wider discontent through propaganda and political and psychological efforts to discredit the government.”

As conflict escalates, so should the “intensification of propaganda; psychological preparation of the population for rebellion.”

First, there should be local and national “agitation” – the organization of boycotts, strikes, and other efforts to suggest public discontent. Then, the “infiltration of foreign organizers and advisors and foreign propaganda, material, money, weapons and equipment.”

The next level of operations would be to establish “national front organizations [i.e. the Syrian National Council] and liberation movements [i.e. the Free Syrian Army]” that would move larger segments of the population toward accepting “increased political violence and sabotage” – and encourage the mentoring of “individuals or groups that conduct acts of sabotage in urban centers.”

I wrote about foreign-backed irregular warfare strategies being employed in Syria one year into the crisis – when the overwhelming media narratives were still all about the “dictator killing his own people,” protests being “peaceful,” the opposition mostly “unarmed,” the “revolution wildly “popular,” and thousands of “civilians” being targeted exclusively by state security forces.

Were these narratives all manufactured? Were the images we saw all staged? Or was it only necessary to fabricate some things – because the “perception” of the vast middle population, once shaped, would create its own natural momentum toward regime change?

And what do we, in the region, do with this startling new information about how wars are conducted against us – using our own populations as foot soldiers for foreign agendas?

Create our own “game”

Two can play at this narratives game.

The first lesson learned is that ideas and objectives can be crafted, framed finessed and employed to great efficacy.

The second take-away is that we need to establish more independent media and information distribution channels to disseminate our own value propositions far and wide.

Western governments can rely on a ridiculously sycophantic army of Western and regional journalists to blast us with their propaganda day and night. We don’t need to match them in numbers or outlets – we can also employ strategies to deter their disinformation campaigns. Western journalists who repeatedly publish false, inaccurate and harmful information that endanger lives must be barred from the region.

These are not journalists – I prefer to call them media combatants – and they do not deserve the liberties accorded to actual media professionals. If these Western journalists had, in the first year of the Syrian conflict, questioned the premises of any of the four narratives listed above, would 250,000-plus Syrians be dead today? Would Syria be destroyed and 12 million Syrians made homeless? Would ISIS even exist?

Free speech? No thank you – not if we have to die for someone else’s national security objectives.

Syria changed the world. It brought the Russians and Chinese (BRICS) into the fray and changed the global order from a unipolar one to a multilateral one – overnight. And it created common cause between a group of key states in the region that now form the backbone of a rising ‘Security Arc’ from the Levant to the Persian Gulf. We now have immense opportunities to re-craft the world and the Middle East in our own vision. New borders? We will draw them from inside the region. Terrorists? We will defeat them ourselves. NGOs? We will create our own, with our own nationals and our own agendas. Pipelines? We will decide where they are laid.

But let’s start building those new narratives before the ‘Other’ comes in to fill the void.

A word of caution. The worst thing we can do is to waste our time rejecting foreign narratives. That just makes us the ‘rejectionists’ in their game. And it gives their game life. What we need to do is create our own game – a rich vocabulary of homegrown narratives – one that defines ourselves, our history and aspirations, based on our own political, economic and social realities. Let the ‘Other’ reject our version, let them become the ‘rejectionists’ in our game… and give it life.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics. She is a former senior associate at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and has a master’s degree in International Relations from Columbia University. Sharmine has written commentary for a wide array of publications, including Al Akhbar English, the New York Times, the Guardian, Asia Times Online, Salon.com, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera English, BRICS Post and others. You can follow her on Twitter at @snarwani

Source: FarsNews
Around 250 militants in the Southern province of Dara’a laid down their arms on Monday and turned themselves in to the Syrian officials as the pro-government forces keep on advancing across the country.

The militants formerly fighting in the Southern battlefields of the country surrendered to the Syrian government as the forces loyal to the Syrian President Bashar Assad continue gaining ground across the country.

The 250 surrendered militants are mostly from al-Sanamein region, including 130 from the village of Kefr Shams.

Earlier this month, at least 59 militants in two provinces of Damascus and Idlib turned themselves in to the Syrian authorities.

Also, 27 Takfiri militants laid down arms and turned themselves in to the Syrian army in Homs, Hama and Idlib provinces in February.

Reports said also in late December that some 157 wanted militants turned themselves in to the Syrian authorities.

Some 117 wanted persons from Homs surrendered to be pardoned.

Meanwhile, 40 wanted persons from the provinces of Damascus and Hama also turned themselves in to the authorities.

Early in January, 86 wanted persons from Damascus province and Aleppo also gave up fight.

City officials also announced on December 22 that at least 15 militants laid down arms and surrendered to the competent authorities in Aleppo after the army and the country’s popular forces’ victories across the province.

Until last year, most surrendering cases happened in Homs and Damascus provinces, but now a growing number of militants lay down arms across the country. As the army scores more wins across Syria more militants lay down arms to save their lives.

Some 116 Takfiri militants turned themselves in to the Syrian army in Homs province on December 20.

On December 12, some 20 wanted Takfiri terrorists in Hama province gave up fight and turned themselves in to the authorities to enjoy the general amnesty issued by President Bashar Al-Assad that has been in place for the last several years.

Some 200 wanted militants from Zabadani region and Madaya in Damascus province also surrendered earlier in December.

“The Syrian government has vowed to pardon all those who lay down arms voluntarily and it has remained loyal to its pledge so far, and this has encouraged us to give up fight, specially considering that the government troops, National Defense Forces (NDF) and Hezbollah who also enjoy the air backup of the Syrian and Russian air forces has gained momentum in its battlefield victories,” one of those who surrendered in Damascus on December 5 said.

President Bashar Assad’s government freed 270 militants within the framework of the country’s reconciliation plan on December 11.

By Tony Cartalucci
Source: Mint Press
Despite the fact that the term “moderate rebels” or “moderate opposition” is used often, the media is seemingly incapable of naming a single faction or leader among them.

Upon reading the increasingly desperate headlines pumped out by the Western media as Western-backed terrorist forces begin to fold under an effective joint Syrian-Russian offensive to take the country back, readers will notice that though the term “moderate rebels” or “moderate opposition” is used often, the Western media is seemingly incapable of naming a single faction or leader among them.

The reason for this is because there are no moderates and there never were. Since 2007, the US has conspired to arm and fund extremists affiliated with Al Qaeda to overthrow the government of Syria and destabilize Iranian influence across the entire Middle East.

Exposed in Seymour Hersh’s 2007 article, “The Redirection Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” it stated explicitly that:

The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

The “catastrophe” the Western media constantly cites in its increasingly hysterical headlines is the predictable manifestation of not Syrian and Russian security operations ongoing in Syria today, but of the conspiracy described by Hersh in 2007 that has indisputably been put into play, starting in 2011 under the guise of the so-called “Arab Spring.”

When the West does attempt to give names and faces to these so-called “moderates,” it is a simple matter to trace them directly back to Al Qaeda.

The BBC’s “Rebel Commander” Plays Dress-Up

In a recent video report published by the BBC titled, “Syria conflict: Rebels ‘feel abandoned’ by Britain and US,” BBC’s Quentin Sommerville claims he “secretly” contacted US-backed rebels from Turkey. The alleged “remote” interview was covered in both locations by professional camera crews, despite Sommerville claiming the situation was so bad, the rebels could not be reached. The “senior rebel commander inside Aleppo” interviewed by the BBC was none other than Yaser Abdulrahim.

Despite appearing in a brand new, crisp “Free Syrian Army” uniform never worn once into the field, and sitting beside an equally pristine “Free Syrian Army” French colonial flag, Yaser Abdulrahim has absolutely no affiliations with the otherwise nonexistent “Free Syrian Army.”

Instead, he is a commander of Faylaq Al-Sham, composed of Al Qaeda terrorists and Muslim Brotherhood extremists. Faylaq Al-Sham and its commander Yaser Abdulrahim, according to Sommerville himself, are part of the larger Fatah Halab umbrella group which also includes Al Qaeda affiliates Ahrar ash-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam – the latter of which literally placed civilians in metal cages on rooftops to use as human shields against Syrian-Russian airstrikes.

Human Rights Watch, in their report titled, “Syria: Armed Groups Use Caged Hostages to Deter Attacks,” would reveal that:

In the course of fighting between armed groups and government forces in the nearby Adra al-Omalia in December 2013, Jabhat al-Nusra and Jaysh al-Islam abducted hundreds of civilians, mostly Alawites, according to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria. The hostages, many of them women and children, are being held in unidentified locations in Eastern Ghouta. The concern is that they are among those in these cages.

The Human Rights Watch report is also very alarming, considering it implicates Jaysh al-Islam, a member of Yaser Abdulrahim’s Fatah Halab, as collaborating and fighting alongside US State Department listed terrorist group, Jabhat al-Nusra.

The US State Department’s official statement listing al-Nusra as a foreign terrorist organization, titled, “Terrorist Designations of the al-Nusrah Front as an Alias for al-Qa’ida in Iraq,” states:

Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks – ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations – in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr. During these attacks numerous innocent Syrians have been killed. Through these attacks, al-Nusrah has sought to portray itself as part of the legitimate Syrian opposition while it is, in fact, an attempt by AQI to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes.

It appears, ironically enough, that through the deception of the Western media, al Nusra has been amply assisted in fully hijacking “the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes.

The BBC’s abhorrent dressing-up of literal members of Al Qaeda and their affiliates in their recent interview fits into a larger pattern of deceit aimed at salvaging the conspiracy described by Hersh in 2007, but upended when in late last year, the Russian Federation upon the invitation of the Syrian government, intervened in the conflict.

With Aleppo teetering at the edge of liberation from what are clearly terrorist forces – the BBC’s propaganda and propaganda like it being propagated by the West represents a cynical attempt to perpetuate – not end – the suffering of the Syrian people.

What is worse still, is that the BBC claims their Fatah Halab-Al Qaeda umbrella group commander dressed as a member of the “Free Syrian Army,” is “US-backed.”

This is either an attempt by the BBC to further deceive their audiences as to who the man they interviewed really was, or an inadvertent admission that the United States is in fact funding the very terrorist groups and their associates, populating their own US State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Whatever the case, the fact that even a carefully staged production like the one published by the BBC is easily exposed as a deliberate attempt to cover up the terroristic identity of what’s left of the West’s “rebels,” adds further imperative to the Syrian government and their Russian, Lebanese, Iraqi, and Iranian allies to end the war and fully restore order to the entirety of Syria’s territory. To negotiate with “rebels” who are clearly terrorists dressed in literal costumes, is an absurdity the West would never accept foisted upon them – thus, no other nation on Earth should accept the West foisting such terms upon them.

By Sharmine Narwani
Source: RT
Syrian peace talks have already stalled. The opposition refused to be in the same room as the government delegation, while the latter blamed opposition ‘preconditions’ and the organizers’ inability to produce a ‘list of designated terrorists’.

The UN’s special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has now promised talks will reconvene on February 25, but how will he achieve this?

So much has shifted on the global political stage and in the Syrian military theater since this negotiation process first began gaining steam.

In just the past few weeks, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies have recaptured key areas in Latakia, Idlib, Daraa, Homs and Aleppo, and are making their way up to the Turkish border, cutting off supply lines and exits for opposition militants along the way.

While analysts and politicians on both sides of the fence have warned that a ‘military solution’ to the Syrian crisis is not feasible, the SAA’s gains are starting to look very much like one. And with each subsequent victory, the ability for the opposition to raise demands looks to be diminished.

Already, western sponsors of the talks have as much as conceded that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will continue to play a role in any future government – a slap in the face to the foreign-backed Syrian opposition that have demanded his exit.

And the long list of deliverables in peace talks yet to come – transitional governance, ceasefires, constitutional reform, and elections – are broad concepts, vague enough to be shaped to advantage by the dominant military power on the ground.

The shaping of post-conflict political landscapes invariably falls to the victor – not the vanquished. And right now, Geneva looks to be the place where this may happen, under the watch of many of the states that once threw their weight – weapons, money, training, support – behind the Syrian ‘opposition.’

So here’s a question: As the military landscape inside Syria continues to move in the government’s favor, will a final deal look very much different than the 2011 reforms package offered by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad?
Assad’s 2011 reforms

In early 2011, the Syrian government launched a series of potentially far-reaching reforms, some of these unprecedented since the ascendance of the Baath party to power in 1963.

Arriving in Damascus in early January 2012 – my third trip to Syria, and my first since the crisis began – I was surprised to find restrictions on Twitter and Facebook already lifted, and a space for more open political discourse underway.

That January, less than ten months into the crisis, around 5,000 Syrians were dead, checkpoints and security crackdowns abounded, while themes such as “the dictator is killing his own people” and “the protests are peaceful” still dominated western headlines.

Four years later, with the benefit of hindsight, many of these things can be contextualized. The ‘protests’ were not all ‘peaceful’ – and casualties were racking up equally on both sides. We see this armed opposition more clearly now that they are named Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and ISIS. But back in early 2012, these faces were obfuscated – they were all called “peaceful protestors forced to take up arms against a repressive government.”

Nevertheless, in early 2011, the Syrian government began launching its reforms – some say only to placate restive populations; others saw it as an opportunity for Assad to shrug off the anti-reform elements in his government and finish what he intended to start in 2000’s ‘Damascus Spring.’

Either way, the reforms came hard and fast – some big, some small: decrees suspending almost five decades of emergency law that prohibited public gatherings, the establishment of a multi-party political system and terms limits for the presidency, the removal of Article 8 of the constitution that assigned the Baath party as “the leader of state and society,” citizenship approval for tens of thousands of Kurds, the suspension of state security courts, the removal of laws prohibiting the niquab, the release of prisoners, the granting of general amnesty for criminals, the granting of financial autonomy to local authorities, the removal of controversial governors and cabinet members, new media laws that prohibited the arrest of journalists and provided for more freedom of expression, dissolution of the cabinet, reducing the price of diesel, increasing pension funds, allocating housing, investment in infrastructure, opening up direct citizen access to provincial leaders and cabinet members, the establishment of a presidential committee for dialogue with the opposition – and so forth.

But almost immediately, push back came from many quarters, usually accompanied by the ‘Arab Spring’ refrain: “it’s too late.”

But was it?

Western governments complained about reforms not being implemented. But where was the time – and according to whose time-frame? When the Assad government forged ahead with constitutional reforms and called for a nationally-held referendum to gain citizen buy-in, oppositionists sought a boycott and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the referendum “phony” and “a cynical ploy.”

Instead, just two days earlier, at a meeting in Tunis, Clinton threw her significant weight behind the unelected, unrepresentative, Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council (SNC): “We do view the Syrian National Council as a leading legitimate representative of Syrians seeking peaceful democratic change.”

And when, in May 2012, Syria held parliamentary elections – the first since the constitution revamp – the US State Department called the polls: “bordering on ludicrous.”

But most insidious of all the catch-phrases and slogans employed to undermine the Syrian state, was the insistence that reforms were “too late” and “Assad must go.” When, in the evolution of a political system, is it too late to try to reform it? When, in the evolution of a political system, do external voices, from foreign capitals, get to weigh in on a head of state more loudly than its own citizens?

According to statements made by two former US policymakers to McClatchy News: “The goal had been to ‘ratchet up’ the Syria response incrementally, starting with U.S. condemnation of the violence and eventually suggesting that Assad had lost legitimacy.”

“The White House and the State Department both – and I include myself in this – were guilty of high-faluting rhetoric without any kind of hard policy tools to make the rhetoric stick,” confessed Robert Ford, former US Ambassador to Syria.

An analysis penned by veteran Middle East correspondent Michael Jansen at the onset of the talks in Geneva last week ponders the point: “The Syrian crisis might have been resolved in 2011 if US president Barack Obama had not declared on August 18th that year that his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad had to ‘step aside.’”

Were the additional 250,000 Syrian deaths worth those empty slogans? Or might reforms, in Syrian hands, have been worth a try?
Domestic dissent, Assad and reforms

The story inside Syria, within the dissident community, still varied greatly during my January 2012 trip. But with the exception of one, Fayez Sara, who went on to eventually leave the country and join the SNC, Syrian dissidents with whom I met unanimously opposed sanctions, foreign intervention and the militarization of the conflict.

Did they embrace the reforms offered up in 2011? Mostly not – the majority thought reforms would be “cosmetic” and meaningless without further fundamental changes, much of this halted by the growing political violence. When Assad invited them to participate in his constitutional reform deliberations, did these dissidents step up? No – many refused to engage directly with the government, probably calculating that “Assad would go” and reluctant to shoulder the stigma of association.

But were these reforms not a valuable starting point, at least? Political systems don’t evolve overnight – they require give-and-take and years of uphill struggle.

Aref Dalila, one of the leaders of the ‘Damascus Spring’ who spent eight years in prison, told me: “The regime consulted with me and others between March and May and asked our opinion. I told them there has to be very serious reforms immediately and not just for show, but they preferred to go by other solutions.”

Bassam al-Kadi, who was imprisoned for seven years in the 1990s, managed to find one upside to reforms:

Speaking about the abolishment of the state security courts in early 2011, Kadi said: “Since 1973 until last May, it was actually a court outside of any laws and it was the strong arm of the regime. All trials held after abolishing this court have taken place in civilian courts. Sometimes the intelligence apparatus intervenes but in most cases the judge behaves according to his or her opinion. Hundreds of my friends who were arrested in the past few months, most were released within one or two weeks.”

This reform, by the way, took place a mere few months before Jordan’s constitutional reforms added another security layer – the state military courts – for which it was promptly lauded.

Hassan Abdel Azim, head of the National Coordination Committee (NCC) which included 15 opposition parties, took a different view: “Our point of view is that such reforms can only take place when violence stops against protestors…But since the regime tries to enforce its reforms, the result will only be partial reforms that enhances its image but not lead to real change.”

The NCC went on to have a short-lived alliance with the foreign-based SNC which fell apart over disagreements on “non-Arab foreign intervention.”

Louay Hussein who headed the Tayyar movement and spent seven years in prison when he was 22 (and recently as well), told me that January: “We consider Assad responsible for everything that’s happened but we are not prepared to put the country in trouble…In March, we wanted what the regime is giving now (reforms). But when the system started using live bullets we wanted to change it and change it quickly. But after all this time we have to reconsider our strategy.”

And the list goes on. The views ranged from dissidents who “like Assad, but hate the system” to those who wanted a wholesale change that was arrived at through a consultative process – but definitely not foreign intervention. Eighteen months later when I revisited some of these people, their views had transformed quite dramatically in light of the escalation of political violence. Even the ones who blamed the government for this escalation seemed to put their arms around the state, as nationalists first and foremost.

Had the conflict not taken on this stark foreign-backed dimension and become so heavily militarized, they may have expended their energies on pushing at the limits of reforms already on the table.
How can Geneva transform Syria?

First on the table in Geneva is the establishment of a transitional process that gets the two sides working on common governance. On a parallel track, demilitarization is on the menu – which basically consists of organizing ceasefires throughout Syria. The transitional team will then work on hammering out a new constitution, with elections to be held within 18 months.

That sounds a bit like the process already underway in Syria in 2011 and 2012.

Certainly, the opposition believes it has a stronger hand today than back in 2011, supported as it is by the UN-sponsored Geneva process. But the difficulties will start the moment decisions need to be made about which opposition participates in the transitional body, if they can even manage to convince the Syrian government – now racking up military victories every week – that it needs to relinquish a chunk of its authority to this new entity.

It is the kind of ‘opposition’ that eventually enters the transitional process that will help ultimately determine its outcome. Look for some Riyadh- and Turkish-backed opponents to be tossed by the wayside during this process.

With the introduction of Russian air power and qualitative military hardware last autumn, the Syrian army and its allies have gained critical momentum in the field.

So why would the Syrian state backtrack on that momentum to give up authority in Geneva? Even the expectation of this is illogical.

There is a growing consensus among Syria analysts that the Americans have ceded the Syrian theater to the Russians and Moscow’s allies. Washington has barely registered any meaningful objections to Russian airstrikes over the past months, apart from some sound bites about hitting ‘moderate rebels’ and not focusing enough on ISIS.

Part of the US problem is that, without any clear cut Syria strategy, it has found itself neck-deep in this crisis without any means to extricate itself from the uncomfortable dependencies of thousands of rebel militants, and the demands of increasingly belligerent allies like Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

They Russians offer that opportunity – like they did in 2013 by taking the Syrian chemical weapons program off the table – and it looks like Washington is grabbing it with both hands right now. It is likely that Moscow waited to intervene in the Syrian quagmire only when it was absolutely sure the US needed an exit – any earlier, and the Americans were still playing both sides and all cards.

For Geneva to move forward, the participants are going to have to make some awkward commitments. Firstly, the batch of Islamists-for-hire that currently makes up the opposition will need to be finessed – or torn apart – to include a broad swathe of Syrian ethnic groups, sects, political viewpoints and… women.

Secondly, all parties to the talks need to agree on which militants in the Syrian theater are going to make that “terrorist list.” This was a clear deliverable outlined in Vienna, and it hasn’t been done. This all-important list will make clear which militants are to be part of a future ceasefire, and which ones will be ‘fair game.’

After all, there can be NO ceasefires until we know who is a designated terrorist and who can be a party to ground negotiations.

I suspect, however, that this terrorist list has been neglected for good reason. It has spared western rebel-sponsors the discomfort of having to face the wrath of their militants, while allowing time for the Russians and Syrians to mow these groups into the ground. Hence the stream of recent victories – and the accompanying timid reaction from Washington.

As the balance of power shifts further on the ground, we may see a much-altered ‘Geneva.’ Will it genuinely beget a political process, will the players at the table change, will the ‘political solution’ be entirely manufactured behind the curtains… only to be offered up to an unsuspecting public as a victory wrenched from a ‘bad regime?’

Because, right now, Syria would be fortunate to have those 2011 reforms on that table, the rapt attention of the global community encouraging them forward, weapons at rest. A quarter million Syrians could have been spared, hundreds of towns, cities and villages still intact, millions of displaced families in their own homes.

Perhaps Geneva can bring those reforms back, wrapped in a prettier package this time, so we can clap our hands and declare ourselves satisfied.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics. She is a former senior associate at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and has a master’s degree in International Relations from Columbia University. Sharmine has written commentary for a wide array of publications, including Al Akhbar English, the New York Times, the Guardian, Asia Times Online, Salon.com, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera English, BRICS Post and others. You can follow her on Twitter at @snarwani

Source: FARS NEWS
The Syrian army broke the terrorists’ four-year-long siege of the Shiite-populated towns of Nubl and Al-Zahra in Northern Aleppo province a few minutes ago.

The siege of the strategic towns was removed after four years in an army offensive from the Eastern side of the two towns, while other units of the Syrian army also managed to purge terrorists from 80 percent of the village of Ma’arasa al-Khan.

Reports from Syria said on Wednesday evening that the Shiite residents of Seyede Zeinab region in Damascus, who have been under the terrorists’ continued missile and rocket attacks in the last several years, have poured to the streets to celebrate the army’s groundbreaking victory in Nubl and Al-Zahra. The last rocket attack on Seyede Zeinab region claimed tens of civilian lives only last week.

In addition to the significant advances of the Syrian government forces in the Eastern territories of Aleppo, the Syrian army and its allies were engaged in a heavy battle in the Northern and Northwestern parts of the province to remove the militants’ siege on the two towns.

Also today, the Syrian Army and popular forces, in a rapid joint offensive, surprised the ISIL terrorists and drove them back from their strongholds near two small towns in the Eastern countryside of Aleppo city.

The Syrian army and the National Defense Forces (NDF) continued to advance against the ISIL and won back the small town of As Sin in the Western part of the newly-liberated al-Maksour and the village of al-Uweinat.

Tens of the ISIL combatants were killed or wounded in the pro-government forces’ assault and their military hardware and vehicles were damaged.

Also today, A senior commander of the Fath al-Halab (Conquest of Aleppo) terrorists group fled the battle against the Syrian army in Northern Aleppo and took shelter in Turkey.

“Commander of Fath all-Halab’s operations room Major Yasser Abdel Rahim has escaped to Turkey,” both sides of the war confirmed on Wednesday.

Reports from Aleppo province said earlier today that militant groups are evacuating all villages and areas near the towns of Nubl and al-Zahra as the Syrian army, Hezbollah and popular forces continue to gain ground in nearby areas.

Field sources said the Syrian army and its allies’ victories in the last 72 hours have forced the terrorist groups, including Nouriddeen al-Zinki movement (al-Nusra affiliated) to withdraw from their positions near the towns of Nubl and al-Zahra to evade more casualties.

Another report said on Tuesday that hundreds of Takfiri terrorists were trying to cross the border to Turkey after losing vast grounds and dozens of their friends in the Syrian army’s massive operations in Northern Aleppo province.

The terrorists have sustained heavy losses as the Syrian army is hunting them down in the Northern part of Aleppo province.

Tens of terrorists have been killed and dozens more have been injured in heavy clashes with the Syrian troops in Northern Aleppo in the past three days as the army conducted massive assaults to win back more villages and towns in the region.

Reports said on Tuesday large groups of militants were fleeing their strongholds in different areas of Northern Aleppo province as the Syrian army announced that it has cut off one of the main supply routes of the militants in the Southern part of Ratyan and al-Zahra in Northwest of the province and laid siege on terrorists in one town and several villages.

Source: RT
The town of Sheikh Maskin in Syria’s Daraa province ‒ which has turned into a gray, concrete desolation after fierce fighting ‒ can be seen on video footage filmed after Syrian government forces liberated the strategic southern town from jihadists.

The Syrian army has established full control over Sheikh Maskin, which was previously held by Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists. The settlement, which is called the “crossroads of the south” and located in the northern part of the Daraa province, now lies in ruins with almost no buildings left undamaged.

“Our armed forces succeeded in liberating the town of Sheikh Maskin completely by following a well thought-out and researched strategy. We conducted the main attack from the north with a simultaneous attack from Garfa. Those two groups came from both sides and cornered the militants, and thus could recapture the town completely,” the commander of the fifth division of the Syrian Army said.

The recapturing of the town dealt “a major blow to the terrorist organizations and their supporters,” as well as greatly contributed to restoring security and stability to the region, the Syrian General Command of the Army and Armed Forces said in a statement, as quoted by SANA News.

The seizure of Sheikh Maskin also became a “springboard for further combat operations,” as the town located in the area surrounding the international highway between Damascus and Daraa links different parts of the province, according to the statement.

The operation was backed up by the Syrian and Russian air forces, the statement added.

Syrian army engineers are now clearing the town of mines and booby traps left by the terrorists “almost in every house and in most unusual places.”

The town was earlier a stronghold of extremists with hundreds of militants from the Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s franchise in Syria, fighting Syrian government forces for control over the settlement.