Syria opposition in no position to dictate terms: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Eric Draitser, founder of stopimperialism.com in New York, to discuss the ongoing peace talks on the crisis in Syria.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: This talk of a political transition seems to be an obsession of the Saudi-backed opposition. How do you feel about how that will play out in Geneva?

Draitser: I think that the real divide here is in how the term “political transition” is understood. From the Saudi-backed opposition side, political transition is simply another term for regime change. What they mean to say is the creation of a “transitional government” that would be free of President Assad, free of the Ba’ath Party, free of those elements that have remained loyal to the legal government in Damascus and then creating some kind of a new political entity to govern the country.

Of course that is simply not going to happen. It is unrealistic and it is a non-starter in a negotiation process. Look, the reality is we know what has happened on the battlefield in these last six months, we know the significant gains that the Syrian Arab army has made, the fact that the opposition, be they the Saudi-backed forces, be they the Islamic State (Daesh) or other forces which are directly or indirectly backed by the Saudis, the Turks, the Qataris, the Israelis, the US and all of the other usual suspects, these forces have been devastated, their supply lines have been ravaged, they are standing both strategically and politically significantly weaker now than it was in the recent past and so … they are certainly in no position to make any kind of demands.

On the other hand, the political transition and the documents that have been submitted by the Syrian government, by ambassador al-Ja’afari and his team, I think this is obviously an interesting moment here, what exactly do they mean by a political transition? Are they talking about moving towards further constitutional reforms, new elections, something along those lines? So there is a clear division within this very word “transition”. What that actually means seems to be dictated more by perspective and agenda than by objective fact.

Press TV: That obviously shows the obstacles that lie in the way of peace with Russia now enacting its partial withdrawal from the country in the hopes of furthering peace. Do you think that that word peace even is achievable at this point?

Draitser: It is achievable because I do not think that anybody can believe that this war can or should go on indefinitely. The question is what kind of peace and at what price? Obviously as I mentioned the Syrian government is not going to give up either the territory that it has reclaimed or its political standing in this context. Obviously the Saudi-backed opposition has major international forces behind it.

So the question is, is there room for compromise? Is there room for some kind of a real political solution and what would be the character of that political solution? Transition is something of a vacuous term. It lacks any real substance. What is the character of a settlement? Will that be the deconstruction of Syria as was written by the Brookings Institution and by a number of the other Western think tanks, the so-called Plan B option? Are they moving towards a de facto partitioning of the country? Obviously that has been a very significant danger all along or are we looking at a scenario in which Syria can continue to be a sovereign nation, complete and whole and contiguous? Will it be able to survive this political transitional process?

That is obviously also very much on the table, not the least of which we should keep in mind the announcement by the Kurdish forces in the north of Syria that they are moving towards some kind of a federalized system for their territories irrespective of the wishes of Damascus. Is this going to lead to a new initiation of hostilities between those two? Is there some ground for compromise? A lot of unanswered questions but the reality is that the Saudi proxies inside of the country as well as those that have been housed in Turkey and in Saudi Arabia, the so-called opposition, they are tremendously weak. They are coming to this negotiation from a position of weakness and they are in no position to dictate terms to Damascus and certainly not to Moscow.

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