Barring full-scale foreign intervention, a negotiated settlement in Syria is "becoming inevitable", Patrick Cockburn wrote in 
an article for the Independent last week.

As the dreadful carnage continues, shifting the battleground from Syria's streets to the conference table might seem an appealing idea. Realistically, though, a deal with the Assad regime is neither inevitable nor probable: the historical experience since 1945 is thatless than a quarter of all civil wars end in a negotiated settlement. Given the tenor of President Assad's speech yesterday, the prospects for any deal between regime and rebels in Syria, now or in the future, look extremely remote.

But let's return for a moment to Cockburn's argument. He wisely devotes much of his article to cautioning against simplistic interpretations of the Syrian conflict, but then – rather illogically – ends up advocating a simplistic solution, reducing it to an either/or choice between full-scale foreign intervention and a negotiated settlement. Since full-scale intervention clearly isn't on the cards, Cockburn appears to be offering no real choice at all: the only option, in his view, is talks with Assad.

In order to make his case, however, Cockburn has to eliminate various other possible outcomes such as a military victory for the rebels or the eventual collapse of the Assad regime through general attrition – which he does by asserting that the conflict has reached a stalemate:

"The rebels are making some progress on the ground but, overall, Syrians face a political and military stalemate. The rebels' assaults on Aleppo and Damascus have faltered, but the government forces do not have the strength to push them out of enclaves they have taken over."

Cockburn doesn't seem to have been deterred from this opinion by the fact that he also pronounced the Libyan conflict to be 
a stalemate in April 2011, and was duly proved wrong:

"Gaddafi appears to be stabilising his authority and may be there for months or even years. On the ground there is a military stalemate. Small forces from both sides have captured and recaptured the town of Ajdabiya over several weeks, but neither has been able to land a knock-out blow."

The Syrian conflict may be protracted but it is no more a stalemate than Libya was in 2011. A stalemate occurs when further moves become impossible. On the military front, the Syrian rebels have obviously faced setbacks but the overall trend points in their direction. Nobody seriously expects Assad to defeat them; the only real question is how long it will be before he falls. On the political front, meanwhile, support from the regime's few international allies is looking less dependable. Russia has begundistancing itself from Assad, Iran is mulling its options, the Maliki government in Iraq has a crisis of its own, and President Chavez of Venezuela – a more distant supporter – is seriously ill.

Once Assad goes, or agrees to go, there will certainly be a lot for Syrians to negotiate about but it's clear from the context in Cockburn's article that he is not talking about that. He is advocating a settlement with Assad – some kind of Grand Compromise for the salvation of Syria.

This may sound reasonable to people living in established democracies where there is a culture of compromise and the concept of "national interest" takes precedence over the interests of any particular government. Compromise, however, scarcely figures in the Baathist psyche, and Assad continues to equatenational interest and national sovereignty with the survival and inviolability of his regime: to oppose him is unpatriotic.

In those circumstances, attempting to reach a political settlement with Assad would not only be futile but foolish. It would remove much of the pressure on the regime while giving it an opportunity to retrench.

Writing in Foreign Affairs, Bilal Saab and Andrew Tabler 
say:

"After almost two years of bloodletting by the Syrian government, there is little chance that splitting the difference between the factions would end the conflict. Even worse, a negotiated outcome would perpetuate Assad's favorite strategy – honed over decades – of using the threat of sectarian war to make his adversaries in the international community wary of getting involved. Instead, the end of the Assad regime should be decisive and complete."

Negotiations with Assad have often been proposed as a way to end the bloodshed, but it is questionable whether they would do so, let alone resolve the underlying issues that caused the uprising in the first place.

Looking at the historical record, Saab and Tabler argue that rebel victories tend to be more durable than negotiated solutions. The latter tend to founder on questions of disarmament:

"Negotiated settlements have, in fact, proved weak in terms of promoting mutual disarmament, military integration, and political power sharing. Less than a quarter of all civil wars since 1945 have ended in a negotiated settlement. Many of those power-sharing deals were broken before they could be implemented (such as Uganda in 1985 and Rwanda in 1993). Of those that made it to implementation, the governments generally collapsed into renewed conflict (Lebanon in 1958 and 1976, Chad in 1979, Angola in 1994, and Sierra Leone in 1999)."

Saab and Tabler acknowledge that a rebel victory in Syria would bring its own problems but they suggest that would still be preferable:

"If regional powers change course, opting seriously for negotiations to stop the bloodshed and build peace, the diplomatic challenge will be enormous. At this late date, such an attempt would be a long shot at best – and would likely prolong the Syria conflict instead of finishing it off."

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 7 January 2013