AhlulBayt News Agency - Since the onset of Syrian crisis, international efforts have been made to put an end to the crisis. These attempts have taken place through holding international conferences like Geneva I, II and III. But all of these struggles for peace have faced failures due to conflicting interests of the relevant countries to the crisis. Also, the disaccords between the different internal camps like the government and the opposition forces as well as extremist groups such as ISIS and al-Nusra Front have pushed the peace negotiations to dead end. In practice, the engaged countries have become unable to find a permanent settlement to the devastating crisis in the country.
The so-called Arab Spring become vanished or fade after a while except for Syria. Not only the crisis in the country saw no winding down since the beginning but also its repercussions have started to impose difficulties on other countries and it kept developing with the same speed. What is the mystery of the peace talks of Syria? Why has the crisis not ended despite all of the international attempts?
The mystery of the Syrian crisis is linked to the conflicting interests between the countries which are struggling to put an end to the crisis. To put it in other words, these countries are trying to make the most out of the Syrian crisis. Meanwhile, Syria’s geopolitical and geostrategic position in West Asia region has driven all of the relevant countries, whether the countries which are close to Syria like Iran and Turkey and a bit farther Saudi Arabia or the European countries, to seek shares from Syrian geopolitical positioning. They also use the crisis to get increased toehold in the region. To elaborate on the current levels of the conflicting interests, we need to shed light on the uncompromising interests of each of the players involved in Syria’s crisis.
Iran and Hezbollah: Since the outbreak of crisis in Syria, Iran has declared that Tehran supported presence of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power and that it would spare no effort to back the legitimate Syrian government. Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s presence in Syria and its support for President Assad should not be disregarded. Though the Lebanese group was last to step in the Syrian conflict, it has successfully managed to achieve its intended goals in Syria. Some analysts refer to Iran’s and Hezbollah’s backing as the major factors keeping the Syrian president in power. For Tehran, Damascus represents the frontline for defense against the US and the Israeli regime.
For years, Washington has made attempts to put Saudi Arabia against Iran in a bid to form a new regional balance of power, but it seems that Riyadh by itself could not manage such a balance; therefore, Turkey has been pushed into both West Asia and Syria conflicts. Such an entrance to crisis by Ankara would add to complexity of the equations.
Turkey: As the developments rolled on in Syria, Ankara’s standing has developed to a complicated and fickle one. The Turkish policy has moved over a course of several U-turns from mediating between the warring Syrian parties and providing arms for the armed opposition groups and managing the opposition forces to military force deployment and threatening to wage a war against Damascus. In other words, in the first six months of Syria’s conflict Turkey had no definite decision to clash with President Bashar al-Assad. But as the time went by, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan observed the raging fire in Syria as the uniquely historical chance to hold a sway in the region, and now Erdogan is gambling and taking risks in Syria to achieve his aim.
As it follows its game, Ankara is pressing and isolating President Assad. At the same time, it believes that President Assad is not worth investing on. The Turkish foreign policy is substantiating the fact that holding a moral approach in politics is not well-prospected, and in this way perhaps Ankara needs to sacrifice others for its own interests. In fact, the most significant features of Neo-Ottomanism are its way of viewing West Asia region and its way of finding clout to influence its developments. Adopting such a policy is coincided with the popular revolutions in the region. In other words, the most important reason for Turkey’s recent games is its intention of doing away with the tough geographical restrictions limiting Ankara.
Saudi Arabia: scrutinizing the Saudi Arabian moves in Syria, one can assert that the Saudis are well interested in toppling President Assad. In chasing its objective, Riyadh has no considerations, unlike the Israeli regime’s security which is a US obsession when it makes moves anywhere in the region. For the Saudis, holding back the Iranian clout in the region is much more important than battling against the ISIS terror organization. This priority has vividly been displayed so far as a central policy of the International Syria Support Group, as the Saudis have paid less attention to fight against ISIS group than trying to remove President Assad. Escalation of tensions between the Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, two leading players of Syria game, would divert their focus from battling ISIS. Actually, tense relations of Tehran and Riyadh could result in insecurity in other countries of the region and even beyond.
The US: The most important concern of Washington was the conclusion of talks which aim at settling Syria crisis. In fact, the US believes that the negotiations are now at a critical level and they must not be allowed to fail. Such an idea pushes Washington to try to de-escalate tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. At the same time, we can claim that during the time of crisis in Syria, the US has suffered from a kind of strategy confusion. In the beginning, it has called on Assad to step down from power because fall of the Syrian government could be influential in strengthening the Israeli regime’s position and weakening the Resistance Axis, as well as changing the regional balance of power in favor of the US. But as the crisis kept raging, the US’ position on Assad has undergone some shifts, and thus the Americans have attempted to find a solution to the crisis through dialogue.
Russia: The Russians since a long time ago, apparently since the Cold War era, have held wide-ranging military relations with the Syrians. A majority of the military technologies in Syria are actually Russian. Therefore, the recent Syria developments have given Moscow the chance to further cement military cooperation with Damascus. Russia holds different political and expansionistic goals. For some parties engaged in Syria crisis, the Damascus’ conflict is a stepping stone and a trump card for improving their position internationally. These days’ Russian behavior in Syria is based on its vision of the West. Fall of the Syrian government for Russia, and for Putin personally, would mean losing the last loyal ally of Moscow in West Asia, an event which could urge NATO’s breaking into the Russian area of influence and thereby undermining Russia’s global position and credibility. Additionally, the recent moves of regional players such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia and their intentions for deploying ground forces to Syria and the disruption of peace talks have led to further complexity of Syria’s crisis. All in all, it could be concluded that due to unclear prospects, the efforts for the Syrian crisis settlement are facing failure.