MARCH 2016 UN Mediation in the Syrian Crisis: From Kofi Annan to Lakhdar Brahimi RAYMOND HINNEBUSCH AND I. WILLIAM ZARTMAN WITH ELIZABETH PARKER-MAGYAR AND OMAR IMADY Cover Photo:Secretary-General Ban Ki- ABOUT THE AUTHORS moon (center) meets with Kofi Annan (left) and Lakhdar Brahimi (right), RAYMOND HINNEBUSCHis the Director of the Centre for September 4, 2012. UN Photo/Devra Syrian Studies and Professor of International Relations and Berkowitz. Middle East Studies at the University of St. Andrews. His recent research interests have included a project on Syrian- Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper represent those of the authors Turkish relations, a book on international relations theory and not necessarily those of the and the Middle East, and a project on the Arab uprising, International Peace institute. IPI state formation, and the new struggle for power in the welcomes consideration of a wide Middle East and North Africa. range of perspectives in the pursuit of a well-informed debate on critical policies and issues in international I. WILLIAM ZARTMAN is the Jacob Blaustein Distinguished affairs. Professor Emeritus of International Organization and Conflict Resolution and former Director of the Conflict IPI Publications Management and African Studies Programs at the Paul H. Adam Lupel, Director of Research and Publications Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Albert Trithart, Assistant Editor Hopkins University. He is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Processes of International Negotiation Suggested Citation: Program at the Clingendael Institute in the Netherlands. Raymond Hinnebusch, I. William Zartman, et al., “UN Mediation in the Syrian Crisis: From Kofi Annan to Lakhdar Brahimi,” New York: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS International Peace Institute, March 2016. This paper forms part of IPI’s Lessons from Mediation series. The project aims to review and analyze UN © by International Peace Institute, 2016 mediation efforts around the world to extract a set of All Rights Reserved lessons learned and make them available to a broad www.ipinst.org audience, including policymakers and mediators, as well as academics and the wider public. Previous case studies in the series include "Mediating Transition in Yemen: Achievements and Lessons" (October 2014) and "Libya's Political Transition: The Challenges of Mediation" (December 2014). IPI would like to thank Francesco Mancini, Maureen Quinn, and Jose Vericat for their work on the series. IPI owes a debt of gratitude to its many donors for their generous support. In particular, IPI would like to thank the Government of Finland and the Government of Norway for making this publication possible. CONTENTS Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Thinking about Mediation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 MISSION AND MANDATE IMPARTIALITY AND INCLUSIVITY ENTRY AND CONSENT STRATEGY LEVERAGE The Unfavorable Mediation Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Kofi Annan’s Mediation Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 UNPROMISING CIRCUMSTANCES ANNAN’S APPROACH: REDUCE THE VIOLENCE FIRST SIX-POINT PLAN: ENLISTING RUSSIA TO PRESSURE ASSAD CEASE-FIRE: PINCER MOVE ACTION GROUP FOR SYRIA: BLUEPRINT FOR A TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT WHAT WENT WRONG? Lakhdar Brahimi’s Mediation Mission. . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 THE INNER CIRCLE STRATEGY: REACHING OUT TO THE PARTIES THE SECOND CIRCLE STRATEGY: DEALING WITH REGIONAL SPOILERS THE OUTER CIRCLE STRATEGY: BETTING ON THE GREAT POWERS GETTING TO GENEVA: THE BREAKTHROUGH GENEVA II: BRINGING TOGETHER THE REGIME AND OPPOSITION WHAT WENT WRONG? ii Conclusion and Lessons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 MISSION AND MANDATE IMPARTIALITY AND INCLUSIVITY ENTRY AND CONSENT STRATEGY LEVERAGE Appendix I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 MEDIATION IN SYRIA (2011-2014) Appendix II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 GENEVA COMMUNIQUÉ 1 Executive Summary opposition. Instead, like Annan, he pursued a top- down strategy focused on the US and Russia but Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi appeared to be made little headway in the face of their mutual the perfect candidates to find a way out of the distrust and competing interests, including Russia’s Syrian civil war. They took on the job hoping that, priority to reverse Western interventionism. if success was impossible, they might at least stop Regional actors, unable to overcome their things from deteriorating further. The odds, traditional grudges and look beyond their however, were stacked against them. The regime of immediate self-interest, continued providing President Bashar al-Assad was prepared to do resources to fuel the conflict. whatever necessary to survive, whatever the cost to Could events have turned out differently? What the country. At the same time, the opposition was was the strategy of the mediators? Despite overall unwilling to accept a political compromise, which, failure, what were their achievements? The experi- in any case, it was too divided to agree on. Each side ences of Annan and Brahimi provide a number of held out hope it could win by escalating the level of lessons for ongoing or future mediation processes. violence—hope fueled by external patrons—and These can be grouped according to the five basic lost interest in negotiations when the balance of challenges that mediators confront: power seemed to shift in its favor. Because both • Mission and mandate: Both mediators faced a sides felt they could—and had to—win, they were restrictive and contradictory mandate, under not welcoming of mediation. which the regime was expected to make major In this unfavorable context, Annan and Brahimi concessions. Confusion over the mandate failed, and despite their considerable acumen, their encouraged the opposition to treat Assad’s worst possible nightmares came to pass. Annan, departure as a precondition for, rather than an whose mediation lasted from February 23 to end result of, negotiations. August 2, 2012, blamed the Syrian government’s • Impartiality and inclusivity:In part due to their refusal to implement his peace plan, the opposi- mandate, which came from both the UN and the tion’s escalating military campaign, and the lack of anti-Assad Arab League, the mediators were not unity in the UN Security Council. Moreover, perceived as wholly impartial. Inclusivity was Annan’s peace plan expected the Syrian govern- also uneven, with key parties missing at every ment to make all the concessions while actually stage. incentivizing regime elites to stick together rather • Entry and consent: The mediators never had a than embrace it. He also lacked a strategy to favorable point of entry, since the parties and address the intransigence of the opposition, which, their supporters never felt the conflict to be a convinced by the Libyan precedent that the West mutually hurting stalemate. Instead, with both would intervene on its behalf, held on to unrealistic sides willing to withstand high levels of suffering, demands. Making little progress with the a self-serving stalemate took hold. conflicting parties, Annan turned to regional powers but was unable to pressure them to stop • Strategy: Both mediators attempted to build financing and arming the opposition. He finally confidence through cease-fires, but these would focused on Russia and the US, but their diverging not hold without parallel movement toward aims, as well as excessive optimism regarding resolving the conflict. The mediators focused on Russia’s leverage over Assad, blocked progress on US-Russian relations, but agreement between the this level. two was shallow. Brahimi, whose mediation mission lasted • Leverage: Without the means to follow through twenty-one months, from August 17, 2012, to May on threats or promises, the mediators were 14, 2014, faced an even more intractable mediation reduced to making warnings and predictions. environment. His efforts climaxed in the Geneva II They cultivated and counted on the great powers Conference, which failed, according to him, feeling a need to end the conflict, but the Syrians because the conflict was not ripe for resolution, and did not see it that way and entrapped their he had no leverage to make it so. Brahimi spent patrons. little time mediating between the regime and 2 Raymond Hinnebusch and I. William Zartman Introduction1 would have made a positive difference for the mediation outcomes. It also aims to draw lessons The first two mediations in the Syrian civil war, by that could be useful to current and future Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi, both seasoned mediation efforts. mediators of stature, took place under extremely Thinking about Mediation difficult conditions. According to accepted wisdom, the conflicting parties need to want Mediators confront five basic challenges, which mediation, and if they do not, the mediator must correspond to several headings emphasized in the first make them. Throughout the first half decade UN Guidance for Effective Mediation. These are of the Syrian uprising, both sides felt they could— mission and mandate, impartiality and inclusivity, and had to—win and so were unwelcoming of entry and consent, strategy, and leverage. The mediation beyond initial professions of acceptance challenges will be laid out here and will be used to that they immediately betrayed by actions. draw lessons from the Syrian experience in the After a thorough tour of all three levels of conclusion.3 interaction—between the principals on the ground, MISSION AND MANDATE at the intermediate level of regional states, and at The goals of the mission are set by the authorizing the higher level of the international community agency.4 The spectrum runs from a mandate that (notably between Russia and the US)—both gives full freedom to mediate and full backing from mediators felt that a top-down approach, bringing the appropriate authorities to a very restrictive the international powers together to exert pressure mandate that requires the mediator to return to on the local parties to come to an agreement, was cultivate support at each juncture. Kofi Annan most promising. Although both tried to make himself, as secretary-general, operated under a inroads into managing the conflict itself through mixture of the two extremes in 1998 when he went cease-fires, they focused more on the substance of a on a personal mission to meet Saddam Hussein to resolution by setting up and then implementing a negotiate entry of inspectors into Iraq, mediating roadmap to agreement, inherited initially from an between Hussein and the UN Security Council early Arab League attempt and tinkered with (UNSC). Although Annan did not have a mandate thereafter (as it continues to be). The case tells or support from the UNSC, the mission was quite much about the possibilities and limitations of successful. Alvaro de Soto, as special representative mediation, illustrating important points in the of the secretary-general (SRSG) in El Salvador from 2012 UN Guidance for Effective Mediation.2 1989 to 1992, had a broad mandate and broad The following study first lays out some general support to mediate a peace agreement, and did so principles and conditions of successful mediation, effectively. The mandate also commits the granting then sketches the unpromising conditions for agency to support designated mediators by mediation in Syria, and finally analyzes the endorsing and implementing their results. mediation efforts of Annan and Brahimi. It does IMPARTIALITY AND INCLUSIVITY not focus on the mediation efforts of Staffan de Mistura, whom the secretary-general appointed as Every treatise on mediation emphasizes special envoy for Syria on July 10, 2014, because his impartiality, but reality is much more complex efforts are ongoing. The report tries to assess what than the Guidance appears to indicate.5 Mediators went wrong, in that both mediations “failed,” and must be faithful and trustworthy transmitters of asks whether different actions by the mediators words and ideas, balanced in their efforts to contact 1 See Annex I for a timeline of key events in the Syrian mediation process from 2011 to 2014. 2 United Nations, Guidance for Effective Mediation(New York, NY, 2012). 3 For conceptual discussions of mediation, see Jacob Bercowitz, "Mediation and Conflict Resolution" in SAGE Handbook on Conflict Resolution, edited by Jacob Bercovitch, Victor Kremenyuk, and I. William Zartman (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2009); I. William Zartman and Saadia Touval, "International Mediation," in Leashing the Dogs of War, edited by Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall (Washington, DC: USIP, 2007); Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall, eds., Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World(Washington, DC: USIP, 1999); Mohammed O. Maundi, et al., Getting In: Mediators’ Entry into the Settlement of African Conflicts(Washington, DC: USIP, 2006); I. William Zartman, Preventing Deadly Conflict(Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2015). 4 United Nations, Guidance for Effective Mediation, 6–7. 5 Ibid., 10. UN MEDIATION IN THE SYRIAN CRISIS 3 and listen to all parties, and dedicated to eliciting these cases, there was no victory to be had, both an outcome that is the product of the parties. But sides were caught in a costly stalemate, and they they must not be neutral in regard to “certain looked for a way out. universal principles and values.” Moreover, the When the conflicting parties do not realize their level of impartiality depends on whether the impasse and the burden that continued conflict mandate is to arrange reconciliation (and perhaps imposes, the mediator must develop an awareness power sharing) or a power transition. Strict of the costly impasse or present an alternative so evenhandedness is required for the former, but attractive in comparison that it catches the parties’ where the mandate specifies a power transition, attention.9 US Assistant Secretary of State Chester mediators are hard put to be seen as impartial by Crocker spent much of his time on the Namibian both the government that is expected to exit and conflict of 1980–1986 convincing South Africa and the opposition that will benefit. In this case, Angola that they were not winning and that their mediators can avoid a zero-sum game by negoti- lack of success was costly, before a turn of events in ating some guarantee of the vital interests of the the field brought home his point. Entry may be government.6 obstructed if the conflict turns into a soft, stable, A related issue is inclusivity of the interests of the self-serving stalemate where the cost is not great, parties on all levels of the conflict: first of the the parties have gotten used to it, or a territorial parties to the conflict, then of the regional and division emerges. The Revolutionary Armed Forces international state parties.7 All must be parties to of Colombia (FARC) insurgency and the situations the negotiation of a solution as much as possible. in Palestine, Western Sahara, and Nagorno- The greater the impartiality, the more it is possible Karabakh, among many others, are examples, and to be inclusive; the more the aim is a power transi- the UN mediator in Libya feared such an eventu- tion, the more some parties will have to be ality also. Still, mediators can only push so far lest excluded if they persist as spoilers. But parties can they lose their entry altogether. be excluded only if they are not strong enough to STRATEGY upset the agreement reached by others. Once the goal is defined, the mediator has to ENTRY AND CONSENT consider how it is to be achieved, and most notably Entry and consent8 may be the single most the relation between the procedural requirement of important factor shaping the prospects for ending violence and the need for a substantive mediation: Do the parties to the conflict want formula for handling the conflict issues. mediation? The parties may be looking for a Specifically, does the mediator first manage the mediator to help them out of the conflict but, if not, conflict with a cease-fire and disengagement or first the mediator will have to convince them of the work on a resolving agreement that gives a reason need for mediation. If the parties are looking for a for ceasing violence? mediator, both are convinced that a one-sided On the one hand, the argument for starting with a victory is impossible—a “hurting stalemate”—and cease-fire and disengagement is that the parties need are looking to emerge from a painful situation to have fully abstained from violence before they can under the best possible terms. Israel and Hamas talk peace. Examples are Bosnia, Darfur, Liberia, looked for Egyptian mediation in establishing Northern Ireland, and Sri Lanka. The problem is cease-fires in 2008, 2012, and 2014. Both the US that early cease-fires rarely hold, and cease-fire and Iran felt the need for Algeria to serve as a violations may prevent peace talks.10 Even their mediator in the hostage-and-sanctions situation in success could disincentivize a resolution. Cyrus 1979. At Taif in 1989, the parties to the Lebanese Vance mediated a cease-fire in 1964 among the civil war both sought the mediator’s services. In conflicting parties in Cyprus but went no further 6 Ibid., 10–11. 7 Ibid., 11–12, 18–19. 8 Ibid., 8–9 9 I. William Zartman and Alvaro de Soto, Timing Mediation Initiatives(Washington, DC: USIP, 2010). 10 Sylvie Mahieu, “When Should Mediators Interrupt a Civil War? The Best Timing for a Ceasefire,” International Negotiation12, no. 2 (2007). 4 Raymond Hinnebusch and I. William Zartman toward a resolution that could have prevented much persuasion. Mediators typically have little hard grief later on. The international mediation between power at their disposal. They depend on the Colonel Muammar Qaddafi and the Libyan rebels in wisdom and appeal of their arguments. In the 2011 was mandated to look for a cease-fire in order context of negotiation—“giving something to get to discuss a transition, but discussions on a transi- something”—mediators rarely have the means to tion never took place. Similarly, the cease-fires threaten or promise anything substantive and can between Israel and Hamas in 2008, 2012, and 2014, only warn and predict consequences beyond their mediated by Egypt, were an end in themselves; control. Much of their power is borrowed from one some, including Hamas, have regretted that they did party or the other. Mediators can promise equiva- not proceed toward conflict resolution. lent restraint or concessions from one party in a cease-fire, assuming they can get the other side to On the other hand, agreement on an outcome or agree to such measures. procedure to resolve the conflict can be required before violence is ended so that a cease-fire does Additionally, because conflicts tend to come in not come fully into effect until the peace agreement stacked layers or circles (in Brahimi’s language)— is signed or close to it. This sequencing allows the first among the parties themselves, second among parties to use a return to or threat of violence to their regional patrons, and third among the powers enhance their bargaining hand during the talks and on the UNSC—all three levels offer terrain where to remind each other of the pain of violence that mediators can search for leverage over the other pushed them into negotiations in the first place. levels. Thus, when persuasion ran out in Yemen in Examples are the 2013–2015 Colombian talks with 2012, SRSG Jamal Benomar borrowed power from the FARC; the 1989–1992 Salvadoran talks with the the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and then the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front UNSC to arrange for the departure of President Ali (FNLM); the 1990–1994 Mozambican talks with Abdullah Saleh. But for the most part, arguments the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO); rest on appeals for peace and better outcomes and the 1980–1988 South Africa, Cuban, and through a transition to resolving the conflict. Angolan talks over South-West Africa (Namibia). These challenges frame the practice of mediation The advantage is that the parties see what they are and can be used to analyze the techniques, styles, ceasing violence for; the danger is that the violence and strategies of Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi may overwhelm the peace process. in their mediating missions in the Syrian conflict. Related to sequencing is the issue of negotiation The Unfavorable Mediation preconditions. It is a general rule of thumb that one does not demand as a precondition of negotiations Context what must itself be negotiated. In mediations of Arab uprising transitions, the most important The conflict in Syria has proven particularly precondition has been the opposition’s require- resistant to mediation.12 The regime, made up of ment that the president be removed prior to hardened Machiavellians, has been prepared to do substantive negotiations because of the “commit- whatever necessary to survive, whatever the cost to ment problem”—the difficulty of ensuring that the the country; constituted along neo-patrimonial most powerful actor adheres to commitments.11 lines, it would find it very hard to share power or Similarly, the government may require that the to remove the president without risk of collapse. rebels recognize government authority. Both The opposition has contributed to the demands are likely to obstruct negotiations. intractability of the conflict through its maximalist LEVERAGE demands for the “fall of the regime,” its “rush to confrontation” when the regime still retained The fifth challenge concerns the leverage available significant support,13 and its unwillingness, to the mediator—the mediator’s means of power or 11 Zartman, Preventing Deadly Conflict. 12 Marc Lynch, “The Political Science of Syria’s War,” Project on Middle East Political Science, briefing no. 22, 2013. 13 Maged Mandour, “Beyond Civil Resistance: The Case of Syria,” openDemocracy, October 26, 2013, available at www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/maged- mandour/beyond-civil-resistance-case-of-syria. UN MEDIATION IN THE SYRIAN CRISIS 5 whether in the name of a democratic or an Islamist tion-controlled parts of the country hardened, with state, to accept a political compromise. The only incremental gains made on both sides opposition also lacked credible leaders who could thereafter. Statistical research suggests a hurting deliver its consent to any negotiated settlement; it stalemate is most often reached 130 months and was divided between a fractious exiled opposition 33,000 battle deaths into a conflict; indicative of the with little legitimacy inside the country and an extreme levels of violence in Syria, battle deaths far opposition inside Syria that was increasingly exceeded this in less than half the time (220,000 by fragmented into multiple localized factions and January 2015, according to UN figures).16 dominated by intransigent and often warring Yet despite the high costs and relative balance of jihadist factions backed by external powers. Thus power between the two sides, each side continued the parties to the Syrian conflict were not readily to hope it could win by further escalating the level amenable to a compromise political settlement or of violence. And each time the balance of power fully welcoming of UN mediation, except insofar seemed to shift in favor of one side, that side lost as they thought it would strengthen their own interest in negotiations. Thus, at the time of hand in shaping any such settlement. Geneva I and Geneva II, the regime thought it had According to Michael Grieg, mediation is more the advantage and had little incentive to make likely to be accepted before violence becomes so concessions; at other times, when the regime was intense that it creates implacable mutual hostility.14 on the defensive, the opposition’s intransigence In the Syrian case, the last obvious opportunity for increased, as manifested, for example, in its mediation, when violence was still somewhat unreceptiveness to de Mistura’s mediation around contained, was Kofi Annan’s mediation, which mid-2015.17 The belief persisted on each side that climaxed in April and May 2012. By July 2012, this the power balance was shifting in its favor and that mediation had failed, and, as the opposition milita- the concessions that negotiations would require rized, violence sharply ratcheted up, with casualties were unnecessary. increasing from 2,200 in June to 5,000 in August Decisive in explaining this unreceptiveness to 2012.15 As order broke down, the “security mediation was the way external intervention fueled dilemma” kicked in, and, as each side resorted to the conflict. Each side believed that, if only its defensive violence, both felt even more insecure; external patrons provided it with more resources or fear of the “other” was such that neither side could increased their intervention on its behalf, it could imagine continued coexistence. A de facto partition win. However, external players continued to soon emerged, with the front lines fairly stabilized, provide their clients with enough support to keep and from the point of view of rival warlords, the fighting and avoid defeat but not enough to defeat turf won and defended compensated for the their opponent. As external intervention increased, damage inflicted by the conflict. This was the it further factionalized the opposition and situation encountered by Brahimi’s mediation increased the number of “spoilers,” such that in the mission throughout 2013. event a compromise agreement appeared on the The next window of opportunity for a political table, it would be vulnerable to some actors' lack of settlement would open, in principle, when both interest in a settlement except on their own terms. sides recognized the impossibility of military This, in turn, was facilitated by the global powers’ victory. Objectively, such a “hurting stalemate” backing of opposing sides, reflected in divisions in appeared to have been reached by at least the third the UNSC that, while not preventing agreement in year of the conflict, as it became apparent that principle on the broad lines of a settlement, neither side could defeat the other, particularly obstructed concerted action. Without consensus in after the battle lines between regime- and opposi- 14 J. Michael Greig, “Intractable Syria: Insights from the Scholarly Literature on the Failure of Mediation,” Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs 2, no. 1 (April 2013). 15 Ibid., p. 52. 16 Ibid., p. 53. 17 Aron Lund, “‘Syrians Have Overthrown Staffan de Mistura’: An Interview with Subhi al-Refai,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 15, 2015, available at http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=60103. 6 Raymond Hinnebusch and I. William Zartman the UNSC, mediators could not make the Syrian Western powers had de-legitimized Assad, called parties confident that all sides would abide by any for him to go, and recognized the exiled Syrian agreements reached.18 National Council (SNC) as a legitimate representa- tive of the Syrian people. Yet they showed no Kofi Annan’s Mediation appetite for military intervention and saw UN Mission diplomacy as a way to get Assad’s departure by non-military means. Annan would later remark UNPROMISING CIRCUMSTANCES that there was a contradiction between the Western powers’ support for his mediation and their Kofi Annan took up his mandate in February 2012 simultaneous backing of one side in the conflict. He in a highly unpromising context when the conflict believed that momentum toward a political settle- did not appear ripe for a negotiated settlement. A ment had to build before the conditions would be previous cease-fire agreement brokered by the right for Assad’s departure.22 League of Arab States (LAS) had already broken On the other side, it was already clear that down. In a report that preceded Annan’s initiative, Assad’s great power backers were not prepared to the International Crisis Group (ICG) argued that abandon him. Already on several occasions, Russia the regime had little interest in negotiations since it (and China) had blocked or vetoed Western draft enjoyed military superiority and would use resolutions condemning the Syrian government’s diplomatic intervention to present itself as a repression of protesters on the grounds that they responsible interlocutor and buy time.19 It had did not also condemn outside arming of and driven protesters off the streets and insurgents out violence by the opposition. Their argument was of formerly opposition-controlled cities, and there that “unbalanced” resolutions encouraged the was every prospect that, were the regime to forego opposition to avoid a political compromise with repression, the opposition would quickly rebound. the regime that was necessary to end the conflict. Even as the Annan mission started, critics of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, “It is regime claimed the Syrian government could not not in the interests of anyone to send messages to be trusted to abide by any promises it made and the opposition in Syria or elsewhere that if you that the mission would merely accord it the legiti- reject all reasonable offers we will come and help macy of an interlocutor.20 you as we did in Libya.” Annan’s appointment, For his part, President Bashar al-Assad warned, according to Michael Aaronson,23 was a compro- "No political dialogue…can succeed while there are mise between the great powers, but they agreed to armed terrorist groups operating and spreading it for contrary reasons: Russia to allow the Syrian chaos and instability.”21 As for the opposition, it regime to survive, and the West to remove it.24 had declared that Assad’s departure was non- Finally, Annan largely inherited the previously negotiable but lacked the means to force him out; it failed Arab League plan, because the General was thus counting on Western intervention to do Assembly resolution that authorized the UN so and would only embrace UN mediation if it secretary-general to appoint a special envoy served the purposes of regime change. endorsed it25 and because Annan was appointed Nor was the international context favorable. The 18 Magnus Lundgren, “Peacemaking in Syria: Barriers and Opportunities,” Swedish Institute of International Affairs, 2015; Andrea Beck, “Why Annan Failed and Brahimi Struggles: The Challenges of Mediation in Syria,” Diplomatic Courier, May 30, 2013, available at www.diplomaticourier.com/why-annan-failed-and-brahimi-struggles-the-challenges-of-mediation-in-syria-2/. 19 International Crisis Group, “Now or Never: A Negotiated Transition for Syria,” Middle East Briefing no. 32, March 5, 2012, available at www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/syria-lebanon/syria/B032-now-or-never-a-negotiated-transition-for-syria.aspx. 20 Salman Shaikh, “Annan’s Mission Impossible,” Foreign Policy, May 8, 2012, available at http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/05/08/annans-mission-impossible/. 21 Quoted on the BBC, March 11, 2012. 22 In an interview recounted in Tom Hill, “The Strategic Thought of Kofi Annan: What Annan was Trying to Do in Syria in 2012 and Why He Quit,” unpublished paper, 2015, p. 34. 23 Michael Aaronson, “Has Kofi Annan Failed in Syria?” E-International Relations, May 30, 2012, available at www.e-ir.info/2012/05/30/has-kofi-annan-failed-in-syria/. 24 Richard Gowan, “Is It Time for Kofi Annan to Give Up in Syria?” Foreign Policy, May 18, 2012, available at http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/05/18/is-it-time-for- kofi-annan-to-give-up-in-syria/; Tony Karon, “Syria: As His Adversaries Scramble for a Strategy, Assad Sets His Terms,” Time, April 3, 2012, available at http://world.time.com/2012/04/03/syria-as-his-adversaries-scramble-for-a-strategy-assad-sets-his-terms/. 25 UN General Assembly Resolution 66/253 (February 16, 2012), UN Doc. A/RES/66/253.