LIGHT IN SYRIA?

LIGHT IN SYRIA?

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Syrian good news is hard to find.  The Guardian and Project Syndicate are reporting on a possible Aleppo fighting freeze initiative being hammered out by UN Syrian envoy, Staffan de Mistura. “Aleppo First” represents a small practical first step toward a very distant none violent stabilization within Syria and that region.  The objective is to get aid into the citizens of Aleppo before 400,000 of them become refugees while create cooperation among the combatants.  It is not a peace plan imposed on warring factions by some external power but rather a realistic effort to get the major players and their minor proxies to focus on the humanitarian side of their war.  The ultimate goal is to provide a forum for future negotiations among the various forces.

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In order to get on the long-term goal of regional stability de Mistura has been meeting with all of the players.  He is calling on them to face the reality of postponing some of their present demands for the good of the people caught in the middle.  For example the West will yield on its insistence on the immediate exit of Assad and the irradiated of ISIS before aid is given, the proxies will not evacuate areas while postponing aspirations of regional domination, the conferring factions will keep their weapons but agree on a mutually acceptable enforcement mechanism and forgo violent retaliation for minor freeze violations.   

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While this is not a peace plan it does present a foundation for one sometime in the future.  It could be adapted into a peace plan forum.  Even if nothing comes of it right away it suggests that there are none violent options to the horrific bloodshed.  At this point de Mistura’s “Aleppo First” strategy of incremental reduction of violence to aid the suffering in that city is the most hopeful development thus far.  I’m praying his plan prosper and that peace will follow.