Enab Baladi Issue # 93 – Sun, Dec. 1, 2013 – Editorial

As January 22^nd, the date for Geneva II peace talks, approaches, political action accelerate at all levels in order to ensure its success. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon considered the conference a “mission of hope” and an opportunity that “would be unforgivable not to seize” in order to end the suffering and damage inflicted by the ongoing Syrian conflict.

Meanwhile, both political and field developments on the Syrian ground are getting more complicated. The conflict escalates between the fractions of the divided opposition over a political settlement with Assad regime, and between the political opposition and armed groups inside. Amid all that, the armed conflict continues marked with no steady advance for either side whether between regime forces backed by its allies and fighters of the opposition, or between opposition groups themselves in “liberated” areas; therefore, the political settlement is the only choice to save what is left of the country.

As the Assad regime insists on using force, the Syrian opposition found itself forced to retaliate using force as well; whereas the Syrian people do not believe that this war, if won, will end in the glorious victory they have been fighting for since 2011.

It is necessary to end this war and to pause and think of the dramatic effects it inflicted during its course. These effects have not only reached to the humanitarian and economic aspects of the Syrian scene, but the emergence of new foreign structures has also reached to Syria’s political and social fabric posing an immediate threat to its future.