Miracle expected: Diplomacy or intervention?

If either diplomacy or intervention stops the violence in Syria, it will be greeted as a miracle. We, the people of the Middle East, believe in miracles; but will we see one that brings peace to Syria? I doubt it.

On humanitarian grounds it is impossible not to do anything. More than 100,000 people have been killed so far. Tanks, warplanes, artillery and even chemical weapons were used in the killing of these thousands. Cities were destroyed. The infrastructure of Syria was ruined. Around 2 million people have fled, now living in miserable conditions in neighboring countries.

I wonder if Syria will ever overcome this destruction or the Syrians will ever be able to live in harmony again either through diplomacy or intervention.

Peace will be a miracle in Syria.

Following the use of chemical weapons, international actors led by the US are considering a limited military intervention in Syria aiming to punish the Bashar al-Assad regime and remind him of the international community's red lines. Will it build peace?

The Turkish government, while welcoming such an international action, is convinced that a limited strike will not resolve the question. Perhaps the question is, “What is the resolution of the Syrian crisis?” The White House openly declared that the political objective of a US-led operation is not regime change in Syria.

This makes the differences of opinion between Ankara and Washington very clear. Turkey wants and works for regime change while the Western powers are worried about a post-Assad Syria where organizations similar to al-Qaeda will find fertile ground for their activities.

But what to do?

My guess is that the possibility of an international intervention is going to be used as a stick to compel the Assad regime to agree on a political settlement in the Geneva II Middle East peace conference.

Yet this is a very optimistic strategy. The Assad regime has seen that international military intervention will never amount to total war. Besides, the declared positions of the US, UK and France underlined that they are not considering Syria without Assad. So the regime in Damascus safely assumes that Assad is untouchable, as he is needed by the West to prevent al-Qaeda from taking over Syria and to act as a safety valve to keep Iran and Hezbollah out of a regional conflict.

So, the Geneva II meetings will be a negotiation for a power-sharing model in a smooth transition process headed by Assad. Will this satisfy all sides? Of course not.

This leaves Turkey in an awkward position because it has based its Syrian policy on regime change. It will not come, either through a military operation or diplomatic means.

Expecting the swift fall of the Assad regime, to be replaced by an ideologically friendly Muslim Brotherhood (MB) government, Turkey today faces difficult choices.

The chaos in Syria has serious cross-border security implications for Turkey. Its borders with Syria are no longer safe. Artillery fire, fighters and smugglers constantly cross over into Turkey, constituting serious security risks for the country. The lives of its citizens along the Syrian border are under serious threat. The border area with Syria has become a no man's land.

With more than 500,000 Syrian refugees on its soil, demographics in the border area have changed. The relationship between its Sunni and Alawite citizens has seriously worsened due to the position taken by the government towards the Alawite-backed Assad regime in Syria.

At the same time, Turkey has become vulnerable to the terrorist activities of Hezbollah and al-Qaeda. Just recently 52 Turkish citizens were killed in Reyhanlı when a car bomb exploded. And finally, the Kurdish question has become ever more complicated with the emergence of Rojava, the Kurdish area of Syria, as a new dimension to the Kurdish question.

Therefore, a miracle is needed for Syria as well as Turkey to settle all these issues.