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Syria has become the Middle East’s biggest humanitarian disaster in decades.
For most of the last 40 years, Syria’s leaders imposed stability on the country’s mix of religious and ethnic groups. Then civil war erupted, drawing in an array of outsiders.
Secular Syrians, homegrown Islamist radicals and foreign Sunni jihadists battle forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah militia, and — at times — each other.
After more than four years of violence that has killed more than 250,000 people and led to the rise of Islamic State, the effects of the conflict are being felt ever further afield.
Russia and a U.S.-organized coalition are both fighting Islamic State inside Syria, with Russia supporting Assad and the U.S. on the side of the Syrian rebels.
There’s concern that Assad’s defeat could leave a vacuum that radical Islamic groups would rush to fill.
The war-weary U.S. is taking a cautious approach that minimizes harm to its forces.
There are worries that if foreign governments supply more-advanced weapons to the opposition, they might fall into the hands of the Islamic State or other al-Qaeda-inspired groups, which could turn them against the U.S. and its allies.
Russia, for its part, says its goal is to keep Syria secular, independent and, most important, intact. Russia has used its UN Security Council veto repeatedly to protect the regime and maintains its only military base outside the former Soviet Union at Syria’s Mediterranean port of Tartus.
THIS WAR NOW IS A WAR of identity—those in which populations are mobilised by grievances that have ripened over decades or centuries.
THE QUESTION IS HOW ARE WE TO GET THE GUNS TO FALL SILENT EARLIER THAN LATER.
At the risk of stating the obvious.
We all know, that bombing is not the final solution.
We all know, that in the Western Powers, there is no stomach for an overt armed intervention. (Putting boots on the ground especially now that Russia is involved.)
We all know, that war is good for business.
We all know, that the war will spread.
We all know, that our current ideologies about war (random episodes of senseless violence- Paris) makes it hard to understand why we still have wars.
We all know, that Sects and tribes are rarely neatly divided, waiting for a line to be drawn between them. Separating them, if need be by force, will make some safer, but it will cause others great misery and may well spark new conflicts.
We all know, that both sides in a civil war often feel they must carry on fighting if they are to escape slaughter. (As those fighting in Syria know, defeat often looks like death, rather than retreat.)
We all know, that only when the fighters have been disillusioned, can mediators get to work—and then only for a limited period.
We all know, that Power-sharing creates weak governments; nobody trusts anyone else enough to grant them real power. Poor administration hobbles business. Ethnic mafias become entrenched. Integration is postponed indefinitely. Lacking genuine political competition, with no possibility of decisive electoral victories, public administration in newly pacified nations is often a mess.
We all know, that Warlords who start conflicts are rarely prepared to admit that they cannot win, and their charisma can be central to the cause.
We all know, that not only does war have a special political and economic interest for many it can be addictive in nature even seeming fun and exciting.
We all know, that the best predictor of a civil war is having a war next door.
We all know, that military victories tend to provide more stable outcomes than negotiated settlements.
We all know, that the prospect of an ending can quite often intensify the fighting.
We all know, that Angola, Chad, Sri Lanka and other places long known for bloodletting are now at peace, though hardly democratic.
We all know, that killing innocent people seems to have a common theme in religion. It gets us accustomed and hypnotized into subservience once our brains enter the alpha state of conditioning.
We all know, that Civil wars unresolved for more than a decade seem to drag on for ever, with both sides resigned to perpetual fighting, too disgusted or exhausted to face their enemies across the negotiating table.
We all know, that one reason for backsliding is that peace often fails to bring the prosperity that might give it lasting value to all sides.
We all know, that from birth, virtually all of us have been brainwashed through various outlets that encourage materialism, ego, subservience, control and conformity.
We all know, that myths are created to drive war and how those myths differ so enormously from the reality.
We all know, that our children are not learning the true history of our origin while being forced to learn a propaganda filled view of what history looks like through biased.
We all know, that there can be no peace in the middle east till Israel takes down its Sectarian Wall and offers a one state Solution. There is little point in clinging to their original dreams long after all possibility of attaining them has faded.
We all know, that civil wars do end.
We all know, there are worries that if foreign governments supply more-advanced weapons to the opposition, they might fall into the hands of the Islamic State or other al-Qaeda-inspired groups, which could turn them against the U.S. and its allies.
We all know, that Russia, for its part, says its goal is to keep Syria secular, independent and, most important, intact. Russia has used its UN Security Council veto repeatedly to protect the regime and maintains its only military base outside the former Soviet Union at Syria’s Mediterranean port of Tartus.
We all know, that if the war continues untreated that there will be millions of more refugees.
We all know, that the world organisations
We all know, that there are casualties on both sides of the conflict.
We all don’t know the Human Toll.
The United Nations estimated in July that more than 100,000 people have been killed in the conflict in Syria. About 2 million Syrians have registered as refugees or are pending registration, with an average of almost 5,000 people fleeing into neighboring countries each day, the office of the UN High Commission on Refugees said Sept. 3. At the end of August, there were 110,000 refugees in Egypt, 168,000 in Iraq, 515,000 in Jordan, 716,000 in Lebanon and 460,000 in Turkey, it said. Inside Syria, a further 4.25 million people are displaced, according to data from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
We all don’t know, that Leadership changes are a factor in the termination of between 25% and 40% of civil wars.
We all don’t know, that the majority of victories come in the first year of a civil war.
We all don’t know, that the war has pitted the U.S. and its Sunni-Muslim Gulf allies, who want to see Assad removed from power, against Russia and Shiite-Muslim Iran.
We all don’t know, that there are about 10,000 jihadists — who include foreign fighters — fighting for factions linked to al-Qaeda. Another 30,000 to 35,000 are Islamists who share much of the outlook of the jihadists, but are focused purely on the Syrian war rather than a wider international struggle.
We all don’t know, that Fighters from the rebel group are financed and armed in part by some Gulf Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar. They have struggled to hold territory. They have also battled Islamists, who see the Syrian conflict as a religious war.
We all don’t know, that the Syrian National Council: The council of opposition groups has its main offices in Istanbul and Cairo, and was formed in 2011. It falls under the umbrella of the Syrian National Coalition. The group seeks a civil and democratic state in Syria after the toppling of Assad. It has a president, a prime minister and about 114 members. It’s an umbrella group of opposition blocs whose main goal is toppling Assad’s government. The group has sought international recognition and the formation of a transitional government, according to its website. It has pledged to guarantee the “rights, interests and the participation of all components of Syria.
We all don’t know, that the Assad’s family has ruled the country for 40 years, and has been backed by the Alawite community and other minorities. Assad’s father left behind an authoritarian government that’s been led by the socialist Baath Party since 1963. Under Hafez al-Assad, Syria allied itself with Shiite Muslim-led Iran. Lebanon’s Shiite-Muslim Hezbollah has aligned with the Syrian government and fought with them to take the strategic city of al-Qusair in June.
We all don’t know that General Salim Idris:
He became the head of the rebel Free Syrian Army’s Supreme Military Command in December. The East Germany-trained electronics professor was a general in the Syrian army when he defected in July 2012. He has been vocal in trying to persuade the U.S. to intervene militarily against Assad after the use of chemicals weapons in August. Idris has tried to convince the U.S. that the FSA isn’t an Islamist or radical group as portrayed by the Assad government.
We all don’t know that George Sabra:
He was elected in April as the acting president of the coalition, and held the post until July. He’s still head of the Syrian National Council after being appointed in November 2012. During his role leading the opposition bloc he stirred controversy by refusing to rule out talks with Assad’s government. He speaks about Syria without any religious or sectarian bias and supports the formation of a secular government after the ouster of Assad.
We all don’t know Ahmad al-Jarba:
He became the opposition coalition’s new president in July. As a leader of the Shammar tribe, one of the largest in the region and from which the mother of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia also hailed, Al-Jarba is viewed as someone the leadership in Riyadh can work with. Al-Jarba was born in 1969 in the north-eastern Syrian city of Qameshli.
We all don’t know Ghassan Hitto:
Hitto stepped down as opposition prime minister in July. He was given the responsibility of administering areas inside Syria held by the rebels. He pledged to enforce laws and provide logistical support for opposition forces. The communications executive was born in Damascus and has a bachelor’s degree from Indiana’s Purdue University and an MBA from Indiana Wesleyan University.
We all don’t know Ahmad Tomeh:
Syria’s opposition National Coalition elected Tomeh as prime minister this month and tasked him with forming a transitional government. The 48-year-old is thought to be have been a consensus candidate accepted by secular members in the coalition and moderate Islamist groups fighting to oust Assad. He replaced Ghassan Hitto, a Syrian American businessman. Tomeh is from the country’s oil producing east.
We all don’t know that Syria’s conflict began with peaceful anti-government protests in March 2011, part of a wave of popular opposition to authoritarian regimes across the Arab world. It evolved into a sectarian war after President Bashar al-Assad’s troops fired on demonstrators.
What about the sham Peace conference in Vienna misleads the world about the lack of any realistic solution to the war.is a sham conference that is not capable of delivering any peace negotiations, and that the Obama administration knew that perfectly well from the start. 
None of the Syrian parties to the war were invited. The obvious implication of that decision is that the external patrons of the Syrian parties – especially Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia – are expected to move toward the outline of a settlement and then use their clout with the clients to force the acceptance of the deal. The idea of leaping over the Syrian parties to the conflict by having an outside power negotiate a peace agreement on behalf of it clients is perfectly logical in the abstract.
Iran, on the other hand, is fighting a war in Syria that it regards a vital to its security. And Russia’s political and security interests in Syria may be less clear-cut, but it also has no incentive to agree to a settlement that would risk a victory for terrorism in Syria.
All the conference achieved it to mislead the rest of the world about the lack of any realistic solution to the war.
The way to end the war is to get Russia to ask Mr Assad to help with a transition into a new government.
It must create a Mutually hurting stalemates. Governments often need less pressure, since they find stalemates painful in themselves. Without full control of their territory, legitimacy seeps away. This weakens them and encourages others who have grievances to make a stand, adding to the problems.
Separate measures are needed for the Rebels. They will require extra pressure, since they are less likely to find a stalemate intrinsically painful.
Fighting becomes their raison d’être; keeping the ability to fight on is all they need. “The guerrilla wins if he does not lose,”
The trickiest part is getting both sides into painful positions at the same time. Knowing that the enemy is under the cosh can tempt embattled combatants to hold out.
The Assad regime obviously has no incentive to make peace the least bad option.
What is essential in peace negotiations is combatants’ acceptance, at least privately, that the hope of winning has died away.
They then can turn their attention to those that blindly believe anything they are told in the name of “faith”.
Civil wars tend to end as messily as they are fought. Negotiations often take place in parallel with combat.
There may well be some conflicts better fought to their conclusion than left unresolved. This is not one of them. The violence needed for a military victory has already destroy the state institutions required to stabilise a country in the long-term. The announcement by David Cameron that the UK is now engaged in drone strikes and bombing against targets in Syria is just what the wars needs. Britain will be at the mercy of events which are being shaped by the numerous other players in the conflict, all of whom have their own highly contradictory agendas.
This was once just a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis in the wider Arab world, especially in Syria and Iraq. Now it is turning into a free for all. The consequences of which will be only seen by those left alive.
bobdillon33blog 