As the Syrian crisis continues its descent into a protracted civil war, a ‘political solution' remains the professed preference of all actors, including the warring parties, if for often transparently tactical motivations. One of the major obstacles to acting on this ostensible consensus is the often underrated, or at least underreported fact that, unlike a military solution, a political process would require both parties to the conflict as well as their regional and international supporters and patrons to give up some of their declared and undeclared objectives. It means swallowing concessions that will be hard to stomach, and even harder to sell to the hardliners in each camp.
Given the motley multitude of groups passing for the Syrian Opposition, as well as the divergent interests of its regional and international sponsors, it remains something of a puzzle just what kind of compromise may fly without being shot down at short notice, be it by open veto or by tacitly boosting militant actors on the ground, by one or some of the actors in Washington, Istanbul, Riyadh, Doha and Cairo, currently home to the headquarters of the Syrian National Coalition. Conversely, for the Syrian regime, the matter is clear: the key is in Tehran.
The reason for this is not only or perhaps not even mainly Iranian economic and military support, but the fact that the Iranian and the Syrian leadership share the same ideological outlook of Anti-Imperialism, 3rd-Worldism, and Anti-Zionism. Syrian oppositionists with leftist leanings are quick (and mostly correct) to dismiss the ideological discourse of the regime as an entirely self-serving, deeply cynical tactics to justify its corrupt and brutal ways. Indeed, the point here is not to engage in guesswork about the extent to which individuals in the Syrian power structure actually believe in the pretend epic battle they profess to be fighting. What counts is that regime actors still have to rationalize, justify and communicate their strategies and decisions in the discursive frame of the ideological cause - within the power structure, and vis-à-vis what remains of their social base. If these decisions then also serve the ulterior motives of those who take them, and play to sectarian fears, so much for the better.
To be able to continue pretending that one is still struggling for the ideological cause, it is essential to retain power, or at least a share of power, that is decisive enough to make sure that the outward trappings of the struggle can be preserved as they were in the past -such as, using Palestinian, Lebanese and other proxies to do the actual fighting, and absorb its cost - and that no political force within Syria will (ever) be able to amass enough power to decisively change that orientation. Again, securing immunity from prosecution for war crimes and protecting privileges and illicit gains may be an important or even the most important motivation, but claims to defend the cause remain the decisive source of legitimation to hold on to power.
That obviously rules out anything resembling liberal democracy, let alone free elections which, as one Hosni Mubarak is said to have complained, come with the problem that the results can be difficult to predict. It may still leave a slim margin for a rigid and very much constrained power sharing solution that establishes an institutional power base for the opposition, while leaving the Assad regime - with or without Bashar - entrenched in a part of the state.
