There is No Plan B either in Yemen or in Syria

Let the talk about a Plan B stop out of mercy for the victims of the policies of attrition and the patchwork strategies being pursued in the raging battlefields of Syria and Yemen. There is no Plan B in Syria, because the US administration will not agree to what it will be needed to bring about a qualitative shift in the military equation in Syria, because of the lack of confidence in the abilities of the moderate Syrian rebels, and because the priority for both Washington and Moscow remains the US-Russian accord and de-facto partnership in Syria. Let the two key players stop pretending their differences are vast, or that US Secretary of State John Kerry has a Plan B as he exchanges retorts with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in what resembles more a comedy with pre-arranged roles. There is no Plan B in Syria because the Gulf countries, which speak of "alternatives" leading to the departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, do not intend to use the Islamic armies they are mobilizing to fight terrorism to topple Assad's regime, nor do they intend to dispatch advanced weapons to the Syrian rebels to achieve a breakthrough that would tip the military balance of power. It is time to return to the policy-drafting table to scrutinize the reality of these conflicts today, after the policy of attrition proved to be a failure and to have an appalling human cost. Reconsidering policies in light of new facts is not surrender; it is a necessary awakening to the dire need for a realistic re-evaluation of policies and strategies, to replace the principle of attrition with the principle of stopping the bleeding. This applies to both Yemen and Syria, and it is time to be candid without fear of recrimination.

Clearly, Kuwait, which is hosting intra-Yemeni talks brokered by UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, is worried about the prospect of the negotiations collapsing. For this reason, the emir of Kuwait intervened personally to rescue them. Oman, which is playing a behind-the-scenes role to prevent the collapse of the critical negotiations between Yemeni government and rebel representatives, and all the Gulf countries, is holding its breath because it is aware the collapse of negotiations would mean the continuation of the war of attrition in Yemen, now a gaping wound in the Gulf body.

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