The peace talks between the Syrian opposition and the Syrian regime in Geneva, Switzerland have failed. This will not be a shock to anyone but the most naive. While some have tried to suggest that the mere fact that the two parties were sitting in the same room was a positive step, the reality was that, even still, the parties dealt with their counterparts via the UN.
There are very serious issues on the ground in Syria. The major players on the rebel "side", the Islamic Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), and Jabhat al-Nusra (Front of Victory) all refused to attend. The latter two groups are affiliated with al Qaeda and the Islamic Front and ISIS are actively fighting each other. The rebel "side" is not a side at all - the violent fighting between the different groups suggests that Syria's civil war will be a long-run thing, and that it will continue to leak into Iraq (where al Qaeda flags have waved in Ramadi and Fallujah) and Lebanon, whose politics are intrinsically linked with those of Syria whether it likes it or not. The Syrian National Council withdrew from the Syrian National Coalition, which was "representing" the rebels in Geneva, because it refused to participate in the talks with the regime. Meanwhile, Bashar al-Assad's forces continue to drop barrel bombs on cities such as Aleppo and Homs, and to besiege the Palestinian neighborhood of Yarmouk on the southern outskirts of Damascus (dozens of Palestinians have died from starvation due to this siege).
The sectarianism of the conflict has intensified to the point where the Middle East is now defined by the Sunni-Shia split. While historically significant and omnipresent, this split has reached a level of phenomenal violence and obsession of which the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would be proud. While the split was something that motivated Zarqawi and Al Qaeda in Iraq, that violence was largely contained within Iraqi borders. This is not the case anymore as Sunnis and Shiites kill each other in Syria, the heart of the Middle East, as well as Iraq and Lebanon. Sunni fighters call their Shiite opponents "majus" (a reference to Zoroastrianism, the ancient Persian religion), "rawafidh" (refusers - the Shiites refuse the legitimacy of the Rashidun Caliphs preceding Ali), and, less historically but more venomously, they call their enemies dogs. Hezbollah is called "Hezb al-Shaytan" (party of Satan), the opposite of Hezbollah's true meaning (party of God), and they call Hassan Nasrallah Nasr al-Lat (al-Lat was a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess). Shiite fighters refer to Sunnis as takfiris (takfir means to call your opponent an apostate, which means death), Wahhabis, and Umayyads (the caliphate reigning from Damascus from 661-750 that is hated virulently by Shiites for their murder of Ali's son Hussein at Karbala in 680, among other reasons). A great analysis on this phenomenon can be found here.
This represents nothing less than an apocalyptic clash within the Islamic world. This is not something that Europeans in expensive suits can fix from their hotel suites overlooking Lake Geneva. There is primordial hatred and fear on display here, of the most vicious kind. Many innocent people, both Sunnis and Shiites of various stripes, are being caught in the middle and will continue to be killed for the foreseeable future. This should not be seen as a black and white struggle because, as mentioned, there is marked infighting between Sunnis on the ground in Syria. ISIS is the most extreme exponent of al Qaeda's ideology (indeed, its leader went beyond the writ of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri when he tried to force Jabhat al-Nusra to merge with his group); Jabhat al-Nusra has tense relations with ISIS because of ISIS' above-mentioned power grab; and the Islamic Front seeks a Sharia state in Syria. The Islamic Front has kicked ISIS out of many towns over which it had previously held sway, including Raqqa, a city in north-central Syria over which ISIS had ruled since last spring. Islamic Front fighters captured ISIS' headquarters in Aleppo a few weeks ago. As it has been faced with more defeats, ISIS has responded with suicide bombings not only in Syria, but in Lebanon and Iraq as well. These separate states represent, to the radicals of ISIS, one large, united area that needs to belong to Islam - their version of Islam. All of this underscores the danger to the region at large as the Sunni-Shia split, and infighting among Sunnis, spirals out of control.
There are very serious issues on the ground in Syria. The major players on the rebel "side", the Islamic Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), and Jabhat al-Nusra (Front of Victory) all refused to attend. The latter two groups are affiliated with al Qaeda and the Islamic Front and ISIS are actively fighting each other. The rebel "side" is not a side at all - the violent fighting between the different groups suggests that Syria's civil war will be a long-run thing, and that it will continue to leak into Iraq (where al Qaeda flags have waved in Ramadi and Fallujah) and Lebanon, whose politics are intrinsically linked with those of Syria whether it likes it or not. The Syrian National Council withdrew from the Syrian National Coalition, which was "representing" the rebels in Geneva, because it refused to participate in the talks with the regime. Meanwhile, Bashar al-Assad's forces continue to drop barrel bombs on cities such as Aleppo and Homs, and to besiege the Palestinian neighborhood of Yarmouk on the southern outskirts of Damascus (dozens of Palestinians have died from starvation due to this siege).
The sectarianism of the conflict has intensified to the point where the Middle East is now defined by the Sunni-Shia split. While historically significant and omnipresent, this split has reached a level of phenomenal violence and obsession of which the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would be proud. While the split was something that motivated Zarqawi and Al Qaeda in Iraq, that violence was largely contained within Iraqi borders. This is not the case anymore as Sunnis and Shiites kill each other in Syria, the heart of the Middle East, as well as Iraq and Lebanon. Sunni fighters call their Shiite opponents "majus" (a reference to Zoroastrianism, the ancient Persian religion), "rawafidh" (refusers - the Shiites refuse the legitimacy of the Rashidun Caliphs preceding Ali), and, less historically but more venomously, they call their enemies dogs. Hezbollah is called "Hezb al-Shaytan" (party of Satan), the opposite of Hezbollah's true meaning (party of God), and they call Hassan Nasrallah Nasr al-Lat (al-Lat was a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess). Shiite fighters refer to Sunnis as takfiris (takfir means to call your opponent an apostate, which means death), Wahhabis, and Umayyads (the caliphate reigning from Damascus from 661-750 that is hated virulently by Shiites for their murder of Ali's son Hussein at Karbala in 680, among other reasons). A great analysis on this phenomenon can be found here.
This represents nothing less than an apocalyptic clash within the Islamic world. This is not something that Europeans in expensive suits can fix from their hotel suites overlooking Lake Geneva. There is primordial hatred and fear on display here, of the most vicious kind. Many innocent people, both Sunnis and Shiites of various stripes, are being caught in the middle and will continue to be killed for the foreseeable future. This should not be seen as a black and white struggle because, as mentioned, there is marked infighting between Sunnis on the ground in Syria. ISIS is the most extreme exponent of al Qaeda's ideology (indeed, its leader went beyond the writ of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri when he tried to force Jabhat al-Nusra to merge with his group); Jabhat al-Nusra has tense relations with ISIS because of ISIS' above-mentioned power grab; and the Islamic Front seeks a Sharia state in Syria. The Islamic Front has kicked ISIS out of many towns over which it had previously held sway, including Raqqa, a city in north-central Syria over which ISIS had ruled since last spring. Islamic Front fighters captured ISIS' headquarters in Aleppo a few weeks ago. As it has been faced with more defeats, ISIS has responded with suicide bombings not only in Syria, but in Lebanon and Iraq as well. These separate states represent, to the radicals of ISIS, one large, united area that needs to belong to Islam - their version of Islam. All of this underscores the danger to the region at large as the Sunni-Shia split, and infighting among Sunnis, spirals out of control.
