TO ACHIEVE PEACE IN SYRIA, BETTER START IN ALEPPO NOT GENEVA.

TO ACHIEVE PEACE IN SYRIA, BETTER START IN ALEPPO NOT GENEVA.

By Jean-Pierre Filiu. Jan 15-14.  [Here only extracts: all author biases have been swept away and his spirit kept. Read the original in the web below]  
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/01/achieve-peace-syria-better-start-aleppo-not-geneva-2014115114851487357.html

Geneva? If you think this is a pipedream, try and evaluate the marginal possibility of reaching such a dramatic "breakthrough" in Switzerland. It is in Syria, and only in Syria, that peace can be envisioned, shaped and achieved. If a ceasefire is reached in Aleppo and holds, with the international monitoring that this requires, A LOCAL VERSION OF THE TGA COULD EVEN BE ESTABLISHED TO RUN THE CITY. [TGA is the Transitional Government Authority  that NATO allies demanded to replace the Asad Regime. Now is the time to be consistent ] Aleppo would then become a laboratory for a bolder and wider political transition in post-conflict Syria. And even with only (the fight against) Al-Qaeda in mind, Aleppo could prove a much more rational bet than Geneva.

Let us face recent facts.To keep the celebrated "road to Geneva" open, US and Russia agreed - at the UN- to postpone any discussion about the humanitarian aid to Syria. While the winter is catastrophic for the civilian population, Washington and Moscow preferred to bet on a "breakthrough" on the banks of the Leman Lake. Syrians are requested to die silently in the meantime, for the sake of such a perverted vision of "diplomacy".

No recent conflict has seen the UN barred so persistently from access to the deprived populations. Let us not disturb the self-proclaimed peacemakers who are so dedicated to make Geneva "work". They already spent sleepless nights in "behind the scenes" diplomacy, in order to achieve a "breakthrough".  So do not spoil their joy by reminding them that the fate of the Syrian women and men should be the focus of their activity, in a country where close to 1% of the population has already been killed, and where one Syrian out of three is a displaced person or a refugee.

No, those arguments are not sufficient to circumvent the Obama-led "addiction" to Geneva. Great, so the bogeyman is back, once again, Al-Qaeda, embodied by the infamous Islamic State for Iraq and Syria (ISIS).  

I spent part of last summer in the part of Aleppo under rebel groups control [in war-time this is named “rebel-collaborator. Which side? Nobody knows]  I could see how families are torn apart, with Skype as the main venue for keeping contact between the two halves of Aleppo. Patriots on each side, despaired to see their city destroyed, are discreetly cooperating to maintain basic services to the population.

Since the beginning of this year, the fighting groups in Aleppo have launched what they called their "second revolution", now against Al-Qaeda. After days of intense battles and hundreds of casualties, they have successfully driven ISIS out of the city. They had no time to celebrate this victory, since the regime started- at once- a major offensive against them.

So the Syrian revolutionary forces, not the regime, are fighting Al-Qaeda, while the same forces are fighting the regime on a second front. A ceasefire in Aleppo would, therefore, not only be a blessing for the battered population, but it would also open at last the possibility for consolidating a zone liberated from Al-Qaeda.

If this ceasefire holds, with the international monitoring that this requires, a local version of the TGA  ("transitional governing authority" in the diplomatic lingo) could even be established to run the city. Aleppo would then become a laboratory for a bolder and wider political transition in post-conflict Syria.

If you think this is a pipedream, try and evaluate the marginal possibility of reaching such a dramatic "breakthrough" in Switzerland. It is in Syria, and only in Syria, that peace can be envisioned, shaped and achieved. And even with only (the fight against) Al-Qaeda in mind, Aleppo could prove a much more rational bet than Geneva.

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