The call of the Syrian regime for a political solution via negotiations or engagement in a process to transfer power seems closer to a used up joke in a comic play.

Indeed, if a regime’s primary interest ever since it came to power half a century ago, has been the annihilation of all forms of political life in its country, how can it sponsor a complex political process that will definitely lead to its relinquishing – not only of the positions in which it appointed the leaders – but also of the mechanisms of power and control over public life, including the economy, education and the system of symbolic values?

In reality, the regime never even considered the idea of reconciliation, negotiations or any expression of a peaceful solution, although it organized a number of meetings among individuals affiliated with it on the doctrinal, behavioral and political levels. In reality, these meetings were nothing but meager superficial attempts to occupy the Syrian street and maneuver around the foreign pressures demanding wide reforms.

Whoever follows the positions of the Syrian officials during their meetings with the foreign envoys, can easily see an ongoing insistence – since the eruption of the crisis – on two aspects at the level of the rhetoric. The first is procrastination and the second is blaming the other side. At the beginning of the revolution, the Syrian official reaction was “give us enough time to achieve reform” or “we are doing our best to correct the mistakes which we recognize.” But as the revolution became more rooted, achieved progress and saw the rallying of large numbers of Syrians around it, the officials’ statements started insisting on the “discontinuing of the arming and funding of the armed groups,” the “rejection of foreign interference,” and the “absence of any interlocutor on behalf of the scattered opposition.”

In any case, the only clear thing at the level of these positions was the attempt to strip any dialogue and talks of their content, at a time when the regime limited its perception of change to the fact that it was the only side capable of handling all of Syria’s crises, and that the violence exercised by gangs having no relation whatsoever with the Syrian people was obstructing the handling and the reforms. It then spiced this superficial perception with talk about global conspiracies, the last facet of which was the ousting of its ambassadors from the Western states. As Al-Mutannabi said: “You are the object of the dispute, the opponent and the referee” (while stressing the differences between the concerned parties).

This, among other things, leads us to the conclusion that the Syrian regime is unable to present a vision to exit the predicament in which it has put the country on one hand, or to accept the political solution in its simplest forms by recognizing the existence of a major crisis sweeping Syria and the growing role of the diverging opposition forces that are supported by vital factions among the Syrian people, from all social classes.

This method, which is being adopted by President Bashar al-Assad, carries one meaning: an insistence on power even if Syrian were to be destroyed and were to slide toward a sectarian civil war that has begun to surface. In the meantime, the wise command will not reach the necessary conclusion to spare Syria and the Syrians from this cup, due to its dissociation from reality, the extreme denial in which it is living and its reliance at the level of its understanding of the situation on security tools with wretched methods and visions and on “strategic experts” who mostly come from the Lebanese home, which has also gone bankrupt.

The bleak future imposes an urgent mission on the opposition forces – especially those enjoying influence on the street and capable of putting forward an initiative on the field – represented by the hastening of the changing of the course towards which the regime is pushing Syria. There is no arguing about the difficult character of this mission and the shallowness and bitterness of the options it features, after the exclusionist-monopolizing mind eliminated all the chances of witnessing a political dialogue.