Why mediation failed in Syria

A case study

By

Ahmed Elbohy

Being the most challenging contemporary conflict in our world today, the Syrian civil war

occupies a central position in the global arena. In one of the most critical regions in the world,

Syria stands in the heart of the Middle East, a region Longley plagued by persistent conflict

since the earliest incidents in recorded human history. Sharing borders with many critical

countries namely, Israel, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, this conflict threatens

to spill over to neighboring countries. It had cost about 150000 lives and threatens a couple of

million others. Recognizing these risks, the UN and the Arab league appointed, in August 2012,

one of the most experienced international mediators, Lakhdar Brahimi, as Joint Special

Representative for Syria. Mr. Brahimi, a former UN envoy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti and South

Africa, replaced Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan. Today, after relentless efforts by Mr. Brahimi

and two international peace conferences, Geneva I and II, the Syrian civil war is still far from

resolved. So, why these mediation efforts by the United Nations and the Arab-league had

failed? And, was it useful to try to manage and resolve this conflict in this specific point of time?

Or it was better to give the conflict chance to ripe? “Since the end of World War II,

policymakers have shown a marked preference for settling civil wars through negotiated

settlements. The core recommendation of this policy is to employ third-party resources—

primarily in the form of economic incentives and good offices—to halt the violence and

preserve the combatants. Scholars of civil wars, for their part, have devoted the bulk of their

analyses to exploring how best to achieve negotiated settlements. In recent years, however,

other scholars have introduced a counterargument. Supporters of this “give war a chance”

option advocate allowing belligerents to continue fighting until one side achieves a military

victory. A survey of the literature on civil war termination makes clear that, of the two groups,

the negotiated settlements camp is far more pervasive and influential than the “give war a

chance” camp “ (Toft, 2010). In the light of this debate, this case study investigates the Utility of

intervention in the Syrian conflict. Using conflict management and resolution literature, this

case study tries to argue that trying to end the Syrian civil-war using mediation was unwise and

premature. Although this early intervention had made some useful achievements in the realm

of humanitarian relief to some besieged areas, it also, among other vices, gave the Assad

regime an opportunity to legitimize its actions against the Syrian people. I will start, through

related academic sources, to establish a theoretical framework to answer the question of “what

is the most suitable time, in the conflict cycle, for third parties to intervene in civil war

situations?”, and then I am going to apply this framework on the Syrian case to answer the

basic question of this study “was the, UN-Arab League joint sponsored mediation, in the right

time or was it premature in the Syrian case”

One of the paradigms in conflict mediation is the structural paradigm, scholars contributed to

this paradigm, including I. William Zartman, advanced the concept of ”ripeness” of a conflict or

the “hurting stalemate” as a perquisite for any successful mediation, they argue that third party

mediation is easier when both parties of the conflict reach this state of “ripeness” or “hurting

stalemate” where they recognize that the cost of continuing in the conflict is higher than any

cost of a negotiated settlement, in other words, both sides that winning through continuing the

conflict is no longer a viable option (Crocker, Hampson & Aaall, 1999 p.21). From this we can

conclude that, for the structural paradigm, timing is the most important factor that determines

whether mediation will be successful or not. The question of who does the mediation or the

number of mediators, thus, become secondary to the question of the right timing (Crocker,

Hampson & Aaall, 1999 p.22). A second paradigm is founded upon creating forums to establish

a dialogue between parties in order to settle their differences in a neutral environment away

from the heat of the conflict. In these discussions, also non-governmental actors can participate

in discussions trying to find possible solutions for the main problems and get the parties of the

conflict closer to each other (Crocker, Hampson & Aaall, 1999 p.22- 24). In their work about

multiparty mediation and conflict cycle, Crocker, Hampson and Aaall had summarized the

phases through which an armed conflict goes. And according to this “conflict cycle”, they had

considered two aspects of third party mediation in each phase of this cycle; 1st the difficulty of

the mediator to enter in the conflict or, entry points and 2nd his ability to exercise leverage in

order to bring parties of the conflict to a negotiated settlement. According to this model the

best chance, that a mediator can be successful in bringing parties to agree to a negotiated

Settlement, is when both parties are engaged in exhausting war and had reached a plateau, or

what Zartman calls it “hurting stalemate” where both parties realize that a unilateral solution is

no longer viable and that the cost of continuing war outweighs any risks of compromise. While

entry points may be low and mediation opportunities are difficult to find, however the

possibility of success in achieving settlement makes it attractive to try (Crocker, Hampson &

Aaall, 1999 p.25-29). In their essay “international mediation”, I. William Zartman and Saadia

Touval confirmed that argument of the importance of timing in any successful mediation. They

added, to the established concept of hurting statement, the importance of a crisis or what they

called “precipice” that in addition to the plateau reached by both parties increases the

realization of this hurting stalemate by both parties. This crisis may be in the form of a defeat in

battle, economic problems or halt of foreign aid. The role of a mediator, therefore, is to exploit

these conditions of plateau and precipice if they exist or even create a perception of their

existence if not (Zartman & Touval in Crocker, Hampson & Aaall, 2007 p.444-446). Another

interesting part in this essay is that it separates between the acceptances of mediation by

warring parties when they hope to benefit from the gains of accepting mediation or when they

feared to lose relationship with mediators in case of refusal, and the actual opportunity of

success of this mediation to reach a negotiated settlement, in other words, there is a difference

between accepting mediation and the will of reaching a settlement through that mediation

(Zartman & Touval in Crocker, Hampson & Aaall, 2007 p.442-446). In his study about conditions

upon when international mediation is most likely to take place, J. Michael Grieg, summarizes

four basic sets of factors focused on by mediation literature to predict the possibility of

mediation to take place. 1st the likelihood of mediation success, 2nd the characteristics of

disputants, 3rd the previous conflict management history and 4th the threats, both external and

internal, faced by the disputants. As for the 1st set of factors the author laid six hypotheses all

related to conflict stalemate. He followed that by an empirical study of different mediations.

Among his findings is a very interesting, though disappointing, one: he found that third parties

often offers mediation when this mediation is most likely to fail, while when a mediation is

most likely to succeed, they don’t offer mediation. This fact is substantial in regions like the

Middle East, where disputants are not expected to ask for mediation even if they find it

necessary (Grieg J.M., 2005). This conclusion has a great implementation in assessing the failure

of mediation in the Syrian case where the mediation was offered in the time when it is most

likely to face failure.

From the previous we can conclude that a premature mediation, one that is convened before

reaching a hurting stalemate, is most likely to face failure. If this is true for any international

conflict, it can be equally true for civil wars. However Barbra Walter argues, in her article

“critical barrier to civil war settlement”, that reaching a military stalemate and skillful mediation

are not the only needed conditions to convince disputants in civil war to negotiate and abide by

a peaceful settlement, rather, due to the special character of civil war, a third party guarantor

to the agreement is a crucial condition. To put it in her words, she said

“An important and frequent reason why opponents fail to reach successful settlements is because they cannot credibly commit to an agreement that will become far less attractive once implemented. Third parties, however, can guarantee, that groups will be protected, terms will be fulfilled and promises will be kept (or at least they can ensure that groups will survive until a new government and a new national military is formed). In short, they can ensure that the payoffs from cheating on a civil war agreement no longer exceed the payoffs from faithfully executing its terms. Once cheating becomes difficult and costly, promises to cooperate gain credibility and cooperation becomes more likely.” (Walter B., 2009 p.340)

She then laid three basic conditions for this third party guarantor to be successful: 1st it must

have a self-interest in upholding its promise, 2nd must be willing to use force if necessary, and

3rd should be able to signal resolve (Walter B., 2009 p.341)

Although premature intervention is probably doomed to failure, Some may argue that the

reason for premature intervention is to reduce human suffering and killing, however this can be

defied by the argument made by Edward Luttwak in his article “give war a chance” when he

argued that premature intervention is most likely to increase and prolong suffering rather than

relieving it (Luttwak, 1999). This argument can be augmented by the one made by Monika Toft,

who had undergone an empirical study on civil wars in her study “ending civil wars, a case for

rebel victory”, she concluded that rebel victory produces long-term democratization and

stabilization than premature intervention (Toft, 2010).

From the previous arguments we can conclude that, mediation is mostly able to achieve

success, in civil wars, if two conditions are met in the conflict. First, the parties of the conflict

should reach a plateau or a hurting stalemate where both are convinced that achieving their

goals unilaterally through continuing war is not any more a viable option and that the cost of

keeping the status-quo outweigh any benefit which can come from it. Second, in civil wars

especially, it is essential for a third party, which is able to deliver its promises, to guarantee the

implementation of the negotiated settlement in order to overcome the security dilemma

usually faced by warring parties in civil war. Now, let’s examine the case of joint- intervention

by the UN and the Arab-league in the Syrian civil war to ask one specific question; can we

explain the failure of this specific mediation effort according to what we have concluded earlier

about the conditions of a successful mediation?

On May 13 2014, UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon held a press conference to announce the

resignation of the UN-Arab league joint special envoy to Syria, the brilliant diplomat, Lakhdar

Brahimi. Since his appointment in September 2012, Brahimi always expressed his wish to resign

and leave the post. For more than a year, Brahimi had been engaged in excessive mediation

efforts which had led to the organization of two peace conferences in Geneva which in turn

achieved little. Brahimi expressed his disappointment about the presidential elections planned

to be held by the Syrian regime, the move which had undermined his mediation efforts (The

guardian, May 2014). This massive failure of mediation efforts by the UN and the Arab league

can be traced to the lack of the basic elements, believed to be essential, for successful

mediation namely; a hurting stalemate and a strong third party guarantor. If we returned to the

time when the intension to hold mediation process was declared, both parties of the Syrian civil

war seemed reluctant if not hostile towards holding any negotiation process. Neither parties

believed that a hurting stalemate had been reached, in simpler words, both parties believed

that they can achieve their goals using coercion and war. The conflict in Syria is not yet ripe, it

was apparent when Brahimi himself answered a question about the time when the peace talks

can be held; he answered ““Maybe 2016, isn’t that better?”(The New York Times, November

2013). As Paul E. Salem had pointed out, in his “critique of western conflict management”,

Middle Eastern Muslims, like those who are fighting in Syria, doesn’t hold peace in great

esteem rather; they found honor and prestige in fighting and struggle (Salem P.E. 1993).

Therefore, they are not expected to easily recognize the importance of a negotiated

settlement, even if they reach stalemate, which makes it more and more difficult to convince

them to let fighting and start talking. This became more evident, in the Syrian case, when 19 of

the fighting rebel groups issued a statement rejecting Geneva peace talks and calling it a

betrayal to the revolutionary cause (Aljazeera, Oct. 2013). Another reason, which may explain

the prematurity of intervention in the Syrian case, is the massive number of spoilers

represented by a fragmented opposition without any significant control on the divided fighting

groups on the ground which, in turn, doesn’t bind by any agreement. This is the spoiler problem

which Stephen Stedman had pointed out in his article “spoiler problems in peace processes”.

He argues that spoilers who are threatened by a peace process will try to spoil it in order not to

lose their influence and interests (Stedman, 1997). In May 2013, the Assad forces, helped by

Hezbollah of Lebanon, launched a successful attack on the strategic city of al-Qusayr (O’Bagy E,

Jun 2013). this move reflects the high confidence of the regime that it could achieve victory

using sheer force and continuing war which is far from a realization of a hurting stalemate.

In addition to the reluctance of the parties of the conflict for negotiation, the complete absence

of a third party strong enough to act as a guarantor for any agreement, in fact the only state

which has the ability to use force effectively had refrained from doing so, even after the Assad

regime had crossed the red line put by Obama administration. This refraining from using force

in the conflict had undermined the credibility of the United States and decreased the possibility

of it acting as a third party guarantor, a role that couldn’t be played by many other states

(Reuters, SEP. 2013). This reluctance of the United States to use force in the Syrian conflict

provides a vivid example of the argument made by Zartman and Touval, in their article about

mediation, that powerful states doesn’t intervene if they are not attracted by their own

interests (Zartman & Touval in Crocker, Hampson & Aaall 2007 p.440-444).

In conclusion, Its apparently clear, therefore that the mediation in the Syrian case was

premature and was doomed to failure from the beginning, due to the lack of basic conditions

upon which the success of any mediation depends. As I have argued, no one party in the Syrian

conflict has yet realized the benefit of reaching a negotiated settlement or even can be

convinced that it can’t achieve its goal by continuing war, in other words, no one think that a

hurting stalemate is the present state of the Syrian conflict. Secondly, there is no nation or

organization that can bear the burden of acting as a third party guarantor to any agreement

between warring parties. Finally, even if an agreement is reached the shear reality that the

opposition is severely fragmented, strengthen the possibility of potential spoilers who are going

to exert their maximum effort to undermine such an agreement. The problem now is that, the

United Nations seems not to be learning from this failure by thinking of appointing a successor

of Brahimi, who will most probably continue in the same course of action which led to failure in

the first place. If we can learn anything from this failure, it will be that; the disputants’

acceptance of mediation doesn’t necessarily mean a successful one and that what we need in

Syria is not another mediation attempt, rather; we need to create the necessary conditions and

then try to exploit them. The remaining question, therefore, is that, how can we force the

Syrian conflict into a plateau or “hurting stalemate” and how to convince a powerful third party

to act as a third party guarantor to any upcoming agreement?

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