So Syria's government has recently stated that it's ready for peace talks, though given today's air strikes against a rebel city, apparently al-Assad's regime is also ready for more war. Or maybe Syria's dictator and his cronies are aware that it probably isn't time to negotiate.
Now it's been a while since my Conflict Resolution class, but here's what I remember about a key concept without having to dig up my old notes. "Ripeness" is the notion that there's a certain time over the course of a conflict that the belligerents will be open to a negotiated solution to it. Despite what it sounds like, it has nothing to do with whether the bodies are being properly disposed of.
At the start of a civil war, everybody's all pumped for fighting. They're sick of each other, they think violence is their only option, and they think they can win a conflict - otherwise they wouldn't be fighting it in the first place. Trying to intervene and get everyone to try a diplomatic solution is most likely going to be a wasted effort. It's only after the sides have fought for a while, seen the real cost of war, gotten a feel for their opponent's capabilities, and run into some setbacks, that they might change their mind. If one side is clearly winning a civil conflict, then they'll see no reason to negotiate with the losing side, and probably go on to win it. But if the sides are stalemated and they realize that they can't get all - or even most - of what they want through force of arms alone, then they may be willing to come to the negotiating table. In short, a conflict has to "ripen" for a bit before there's a good chance of peacefully resolving it.
Now, the Syrian civil war has been going on since 2011, it's killed 200,000 people, displaced over 10 million people, and has spilled over into neighboring countries. But is it "ripe" for a peaceful resolution?
Since Thursday's statement from the al-Assad regime doesn't seem to be going anywhere or been taken seriously, the answer is probably "no." This seems to be either an attempt at good PR by a dictatorial government willing to bomb hospitals, or an admission that the war isn't going well for al-Assad and that these theoretical peace talks would be the only way for him to keep his head and stay in power. A sign of desperation in other words.
Even if al-Assad is willing to use words for once, there's little indication the other sides share this interest in negotiations. ISIS has said, if I recall correctly, that the powers arranged against them would have to treat with them eventually, but this was presumably bravado and an attempt by ISIS to gain legitimacy. As for the other rebels - well, let's not make the mistake of assuming that the rebels are a unified faction. There's those legendary "moderate" Syrians resistance fighters that are backed by the US, and who may have little reason to give up with such a powerful ally on their side. Then there are others who apparently are willing to listen to Iranian delegates and hold a truce, though since I can't find a follow-up on that story I'm not sure how well it went.
More importantly, for negotiations to be successful there has to be common ground, and all of these three factions have mutually-exclusive goals. Bashar al-Assad wants to stay alive and his cronies want him to stay in power. The rebels want him gone and someone new in charge. And ISIS rejects the notion of modern Syria in favor of a religious state under their control. I suppose the best you could offer would be to divide Syria up among the three of them, except, well, we don't like doing that in a post-colonial country like Syria. People in the rest of the Middle East might start getting the wrong idea. Much better to pretend that the lines in the sand mean something.
All this to say, al-Assad's words of peace sound hollow, and the fighting in Syria is probably going to continue. Because from what else I remember from my conflict studies courses, this civil war in Syria has all the signs of a nasty, protracted conflict. We've got easily-captured natural resources (oil) that can be used to fund the fighting. We've got an array of outside actors backing the factions within the civil war - Iran and Russia are propping up al-Assad, the United States and some of its regional allies are (officially) backing the Syrian resistance, and then there are fundamentalist Muslims all over the world lending financial or material support to ISIS. And we've got goals that are more profound than disputes over representation in government or resource allocation, but a conflict over what type of government is acceptable.
But just because the sides in the civil war may not be interested in a peaceful resolution doesn't mean that the fighting has to go on forever. The United States is supposedly going to step up its support of the Syrian rebels, and Turkey has recently gotten off its duff to contribute, even if they seem more interested in fighting Kurds than ISIS. Hopefully with this support, the "good guys" - or at least the guys who aren't loyal to a dictator or a religious fanatics - will be able to tip the balance and resolve the conflict the hard way.
If they do it fast enough, there may be enough of Syria left to salvage when they're finished.
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