By Rami G. Khouri

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s hard-line speech last Sunday is likely to trigger a new and decisive final phase of the conflict in Syria. It will also promote more vigorous discussion of several critical aspects of the conflict that must be addressed quickly if the death, destruction and regional damage are to be contained. The Assad speech merely confirmed what the regime has made clear since the outbreak of the revolt against it in late March 2011 – that it will use massive and indiscriminate military force to crush its opponents and terrorize the civilian population into permanent submission. The regime has been very consistent in this respect, but its policy has also consistently failed to quell the uprising. In fact it has always generated the opposite response, by expanding the scope and intensity of the rebellion.
 
Only a military solution now seems possible in Syria, and the most likely one is the collapse of the regime at some point. The opposition forces realized this last summer, during the Kofi Annan mediation effort, when two critical issues were clarified: There would be no political solution to the conflict as long as Assad insisted on remaining in full control of the state and its resources; and, the international community that supported the opposition’s efforts to overthrow the regime would not provide substantial military aid or intervene militarily to help the rebels, as had happened in Libya.
 
Assad’s speech Sunday simply confirmed his refusal to come to terms with the fact that massive numbers of his own citizens and most governments around the world irrevocably want to remove him and his family from office, and bring to an end his top-heavy, security-minded authoritarian government system. The armed opposition is now likely to regroup and adjust its strategy accordingly. As military actions increase all around, a handful of important political issues may now come to the fore.
 
The first is the international community’s “responsibility to protect” civilians in cases of imminent crimes against humanity and war crimes. The U.N. estimate that some 60,000 people have died in the fighting in Syria, combined with the savage nature of the killing and the steadily rising average daily death toll, all suggest this is a moment of reckoning for the R2P doctrine that has been so widely debated across the world in the past three decades. Increasingly, one wonders if the responsibility to protect only applies in cases where those vulnerable are White Europeans (as in Kosovo) or citizens of oil states adjacent to Europe (as in Libya).
 
The second is the question of whether to indict Assad and his top officials at the International Criminal Court, or leave them unindicted so they retain an option to leave office and end the conflict that way (as happened in Yemen). This is both a philosophical dilemma and a hard political reality – is it best to seek justice through indictments that would probably only increase the violence and death toll and may never bring anyone to trial, or end the killing by allowing Assad and his family to leave Syria for a safe haven?
 
The third issue of concern is working out an arrangement with the Alawite community in Syria so its mainstream leaders do not choose to engage in ethnic cleansing against Sunnis and retreat into an Alawite homeland as a desperate last resort antidote to the fall of the Assad regime. This is a critical step to foiling Assad’s strategy of making the Alawites feel their survival depends on fighting with him against everyone else in Syria who opposes him.
 
The fourth matter is establishing clear, credible and realistic transitional justice mechanisms that would hold accountable those in the Assad regime (and in the opposition) who are responsible for the worst war crimes being committed against the Syrian people, so as to promote a smooth transition into the post-Assad era based on respecting the rule of law and human rights. However the transition happens, it will be critical to avoid the mistakes of Iraq, where the state structures collapsed or were destroyed. Instead it is necessary to preserve the integrity of core systems of state and society, such as police, food distribution, transportation and justice. This will require a mechanism to identify and hold accountable in court those involved in the worst crimes, while making it clear to thousands of civil servants and security forces personnel that merely being part of the governing system under the Assads was not a crime.
 
A fifth issue that transcends Syria but is also likely to preoccupy many people in the months ahead, is whether the current U.N. Security Council mechanism for ensuring peace and security in the world remains viable, or should be changed. The Russian-American disagreement on how to proceed on Syria paralyzed the council, and did not prevent the conflict from moving ahead on the ground.
 
Rami G. Khouriis published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR. You can follow him on twitter @RamiKhouri.