After eight months of delay, the International Conference on Syria – the so-called Geneva 2 – will convene on Tuesday to try and bring an end to a conflict that is rapidly destroying the country and has spread instability throughout the region.
This is likely to be one of those diplomatic affairs where the mere convening of the meeting could be the most significant achievement. The ultimate aim – a transitional government to lead the country to peace – is still far away.
For peace conferences to succeed, it is usual for one side or the other to be defeated or close to it, or for both to have decided they can pursue their struggle without weapons. Neither is true of the Syrian conflict.
The embattled regime of President Bashar Al Assad still believes it can prevail, with the financial and military support of Iran, and diplomatic cover from Russia. The disparate rebel forces, which have been fighting each other in recent weeks almost as fiercely as they have battled the army, are far from admitting defeat, but they are not strong enough to topple the regime.
As for the US and its allies, they are unusually divided and seemingly impotent to deliver on their blithe demands early in the conflict that the Assad clan must leave power.
Against this unpromising background, John Kerry, the US secretary of state, and Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, have been straining to bring their allies to the opening session. It would be something of a diplomatic coup – or at least a memorable photo – to get the warring sides together.
The Damascus regime is sending a delegation, including some of its most accomplished propagandists. Despite weeks of diplomatic arm-twisting by the US and Britain, the opposition Syrian National Coalition has left to the last minute its decision whether to attend. Its leader, Ahmad Al Jarba, faces a harsh choice: if he goes, his unwieldy coalition, whose ability to control events on the ground is questionable, will lose face. Some of its members will probably walk away from the coalition. If he boycotts, the Americans have warned that they will drop him.
These warnings have created headlines around the world, but coalition insiders question whether Mr Kerry would really fulfil his threat. Who is he going to support instead, they ask: the Islamists or the Al Qaeda affiliates? He has no choice but to stick with the moderate opposition.
Mr Kerry has meanwhile had to dance around the question of inviting Iran. As a key player in the conflict, providing up to $1 billion (Dh3.6 billion) a month to support the Syrian government and coordinating the dispatch to the battlefront of Hizbollah fighters from Lebanon and Shia militias from Iraq, it is logical that Tehran has to be involved in any peace settlement. But Mr Kerry is aware of the adverse reaction of Congress and US allies, not least Saudi Arabia. He has suggested implausibly that Iran should take part from the sidelines.
For the moment, the Iranian government seems wary of taking part in any conference in which Washington makes no secret of its view that the purpose is to get rid of the Assad clan.
In fact, the founding document of the conference, the June 2012 communiqué of the first Geneva meeting of the Action Group for Syria, hardly supports the US view. It says that the transitional governing body could include members of the current government and the opposition and “shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent”, which suggests the Assad clan will have a veto on their own departure. While the Syrian army still controls Damascus, this line is a dead letter.
The Syrian regime has not been idle. Building on its key message that Mr Assad is a vital bulwark against terrorism, the deputy foreign minister, Faisal Al Mikdad, revealed to the BBC that western security services had been travelling to Damascus to ask for intelligence cooperation on the hundreds of European fighters who have volunteered for jihad in Syria.
This revelation – still unconfirmed – has highlighted the contradictions between western politicians, who have called for Mr Al Assad to go, and the security services who worry about what the jihadists being trained in Syria will get up to when they return home, either flushed with success or embittered by defeat. The French president, Francois Hollande, said this week that 700 French nationals or residents had gone to fight in Syria, which brings to well over 1,200 the estimated number of Europeans fighting with the Syrian opposition.
These reported contacts will only add to fears among the Syrian rebels that western countries feel more at home doing business with a bloodthirsty dictator than with the opposition.
Several hundred fighters have been killed in the past three weeks as the core elements of the opposition have taken on the leading Al Qaeda franchise, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. This is a reaction to the jihadists’ cut-throat justice and colonial attitude towards the Syrian people. But it is also a sign ahead of the Geneva conference that the less extreme elements of the opposition want to show they are still in business, and that not all fighters are terrorists, as the government claims.
Amid this jostling for position, perhaps the most significant fact is that the regime forces have not been able to make any significant gains while the rebels are at each other’s throats. Despite all the Russian weaponry and the Iranian support, the army is fully stretched to control the territory it has.
So this is a peace conference without a peace process. Its foundations are totally inadequate to deal with the worst humanitarian emergency of recent years. It would be easy to dismiss it as a waste of time and energy. But given that the US has no military solution for the conflict, there has to be a diplomatic one, and that means Washington and Moscow pulling together. Does that provide any comfort for the millions of Syrian refugees? Of course not. It is only the most tentative first step.
aphilps@thenational.ae
On Twitter: @aphilps