Diplomacy

The Damascus File

The conventional wisdom on Syria is that the conflict is intractable. Thirteen years of war. Half a million dead. Thirteen million displaced. Multiple foreign powers with competing interests. Deep sectarian divisions. A government that has demonstrated willingness to use chemical weapons against its own people.

Every attempt at negotiation has failed. The Geneva process stalled. The Astana talks produced ceasefires that collapsed. The constitutional committee went nowhere. Regional powers — Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United States — all have vested interests that contradict each other.

The Ceasefire That Almost Held

There is a pattern in failed peace processes that deserves more attention than it receives. The pattern is this: the ceasefire almost holds. The agreement almost works. The parties almost trust each other enough to take the next step.

And then it collapses, and the narrative becomes “peace was never possible,” and everyone moves on.

But the “almost” is the most important part of the story. Because if peace almost worked, then the analysis should focus not on why the conflict is intractable, but on what specific, identifiable factor caused the near-success to fail.