What is the point of normalizing Arab relations with the Syrian regime?

Saudi Arabia has experiences - to say the least - that they are not encouraging regarding cooperation with - or openness to - Arab regimes in which Iran partially or completely controls the joints of government, such as Iraq and Lebanon.

This seems to be one of the main reasons why it did not take a similar position in the case of Syria, in addition to the absence of a unified Gulf and Arab policy led by the Kingdom towards normalizing relations with the Syrian regime.

The position of Riyadh, as well as Doha, represents a major obstacle to the path of Arab normalization with the regime since its inception with the support of Russia in 2018. Of course, this position is reinforced by the policy of the United States, Britain, Germany and France, which do not encourage the lifting of the isolation imposed on the regime since 2011. There was no real and serious change in his behavior, which threatens local, regional and international security.

The Syrian regime has increased the level of threat to Arab regional security rather than reducing it, as shipments of narcotic substances are flowing more than ever before to the Arab Gulf states and North Africa.

However, these countries monitored all previous steps and calls for normalization, in an attempt to test them, but there was no benefit. The regime - for example - did not comply or respond to any of the terms and conditions of the first Arab initiative proposed by King Abdullah II to US President Joe Biden in mid-2021, despite the progress that has been achieved in the interest of the regime at the level of some items, such as the flow of aid across the contact lines and early recovery projects.

Since then, the political settlement within the framework of the Constitutional Committee and UN Security Council Resolution No. 2254 of 2015 - as one of the items of the initiative - has not achieved any breach or progress, but has become completely suspended since mid-2022, due to the position of the regime that linked its continuation to the West's response to Russia's conditions. .

While the regime is supposed to seek to reduce Iran's influence militarily in its areas of control, it has provided it with more facilities to deploy its air defense system south of the capital and south of the country, and the Syrian air defense infrastructure has also become open to its militias.

The regime has increased the level of threat to Arab regional security rather than reducing it, as shipments of narcotic substances are flowing more than ever before to the Arab Gulf states and North Africa.

It is clear that this behavior was intended to put pressure on the Arab countries and the international community to respond to the rest of the conditions for normalization, such as ending isolation and lifting economic sanctions on it.

Indeed, the second Arab initiative presented this time by the Sultan of Oman, Haitham bin Tariq, came directly to Bashar al-Assad, and its provisions are no different from the first. Rather, it responds to the regime's vision of a political solution in terms of forming a national unity government between the two parties to the conflict without addressing the fate of al-Assad.

In fact, the new Arab initiative gained more momentum than its predecessor, due to its presentation as a "humanitarian window" for a solution, after the catastrophe of the earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northwestern Syria on February 6, although it was to be presented before that, as the special envoy of the Russian president To Syria Alexander Lavrentiev had visited Jordan last January, with the aim of discussing launching an Arab effort to resolve the crisis.

The support of the Arab countries for the second normalization initiative, which got involved in the first initiative despite not achieving any benefit from it, indicates the lack of a common understanding about Arab security in return for focusing more on using it as a means to be present in the Syrian scene after it declined following the outbreak of the conflict in the country, and then the Arab role faltered. to resolve between 2011 and 2015.

It seems that the countries involved in the second normalization initiative with the Syrian regime hope that its presence in the Syrian scene will contribute to it becoming a major and influential part of the policies of both the United States and Russia, as it can help implement an American policy based on the dual and differentiated containment of the regime and Iran, and in return it can For each country to achieve part of its security and economic goals in cooperation with Russia.

However, these goals and efforts will often be futile. Egypt, which, for example, wants to reduce the power difference with Turkey and Iran in cooperation with Russia in Syria, will collide with a field and institutional reality imposed by the previous years since the establishment of the Astana platform in 2017, and Jordan has greatly experienced since 2018 the impossibility of the regime's response or acceptance. Iran to remove its militias from southern Syria.

Saudi Arabia realizes that all these efforts will not lead to peace and security stability in Syria. It had previously tried to do so in Iraq before it decided to withdraw from the scene there, and then return to it after the Baghdad government responded to some of its conditions.

However, it is still very cautious.

This approach will not differ much in Syria with the difference in measurement. Riyadh, and Doha, like it, are convinced that any step presented to the regime will not be feasible, because it will not respond to it, and it will not miss the opportunity to develop new tools to put pressure on its surroundings, such as flooding the Arab world with Captagon pills. narcotic.

In other words, either the regime must respond in advance to security conditions that were originally conveyed through intelligence channels that have not been closed, or that the solution to the Syrian file be part of the negotiations with Iran, or not to engage in any Arab initiative.

Finally, it can be said that the results of the second Arab normalization initiative will not be better than the previous one or any single Arab movement, despite all the momentum that accompanies it, and there will be no benefit unless there is a common understanding to protect Arab security from threats coming from Syria, and unless the regime concedes. before taking any step in his interest.