The broad approbation from several factions of the armed opposition in Syria, as well as their regional and international supporters to the Turkish, propose replacing the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with his vice Farouk al-Sharaa. This reflects that both the opposition groups and their supporters have reached a point where they lost any hope in bringing down the entire structure of the ruling regime. They are now working according to the Arab proverb: "If you can't take it all, at least don't return empty handed" - so a little change is better than nothing. But this will not stop others from asking whether if replacing Assad with his vice, is a target that deserves sacrificing the lives of more than 30,000 martyrs? Until now, the Turks are yet to give answers to a lot of questions connected to their proposal in order to make it concrete; they have to tell us who will set Sharaa's powers, Assad or someone else? Does Assad have to step down immediately or he should only transfer some of his powers to his vice? If Assad will not step down immediately, how long he would stay? Would he retire politics, or perhaps he will follow the steps of Yemen's former president Ali Abdullah who is still influentially involved in Yemen's transition even from outside the presidential palace? Does an early presidential election will take place, or it will be held in its normal date? Would this election be a one horse race (again like Yemen) or an open, competitive election? Would Assad have the right to run for it or he should officially announce barring himself? Nobody at the moment seems to be concerned about finding answers to these serious questions, even those who applauded the Turkish proposal. Maybe because everybody believes that any discussion about finding a solution to the Syrian crisis before the end of the US presidential election is not even worth the time spent. Or perhaps because the Turkish proposal recalls the power transfer deal in Yemen, which is yet to prove any success, as the ousted president, Saleh is still causing a lot of problems in the country. He, his family in addition to the tribes and militias supporting him forced the transitional president to look like a play thing in their hands. Yemen's problems, meanwhile, have been more complicated after the beginning of the transitional path; the separatist movements of south Yemen are speaking louder than ever, the Houthi rebels are getting closer to enter an alliance with Saleh. Al-Qaeda is becoming a constant threat to the country's security, poverty and starvation are found in almost everywhere, corruption and security dereliction have gone beyond any scale, and we can list many other problems which only one of them can be considered a nationwide affliction. A few months ago, Jordan's King Abdullah II was speaking about the Syrian crisis, wondering why everybody is only concerned about Assad while nobody seems to be thinking about how the entire regime will be structured after his departure. The UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi also pointed out the issue when he played down the significance of forcing Assad to retire. Brahimi recalled his experience as a peace envoy for Lebanon in the late eighties, where many were seeing the problem was in former president Suleiman Franjiyeh, whom they thought his resignation will solve everything. They got what they wanted as the man had eventually resigned, yet three presidents came after him plus two transitional governments and they all failed in stopping the civil war in the country. Assad might resign, or be forced to do. He might be brought down or step down by his own will. He can transfer his powers to his vice or any other transitional authority, but what is more important is to answer this question: Would any of these stop the blood shedding in Syria? As the Syrian opposition changed their target to replace the president, instead opting for a change in the regime, the Syrian issue will be subject to many more proposals, suggestions and deals to prove that the Turkish proposal is just an "inauguration" one. We will see a flow of schemes that will be changed according to the developments of the battle of Aleppo, until the international atmosphere will be ready to produce a "Syrian Taef Accord" but certainly it will not be signed in Saudi Arabia's Taef this time. -- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.
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Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2023 ©