What if the Yemeni negotiating speech was associated with Syria?

Written by Nasser Kandil,

It is not a secret the size of the regional and the international association between the wars in Syria and Yemen as long as the forces which support the fighting fronts are almost the same, as it is not a secret the size of the association in the settlements in the two arenas as long as the balances of the forces which are drawn by the wars will produce one package of balances that will determine the sizes and the roles of the active countries in the backgrounds which affect the two crises, specially the status of each of Iran and Saudi Arabia, but what we meant here is something else that is related to the negotiating speech of the Yemeni national forces which are exposed to cynical and unjust campaign that underestimates the minimal degree of the citizenship rights, as the rights of the people to determine their fate, it raised against them selective and discretionary slogans as the legitimacy’s support, disarming the militias, the UN resolutions, the participation in the authority is not a prize for the coup, and others of the equations which are promoted by Saudi Arabia on one hand, and applied by the Yemeni team associated with it on the other hand,  and which received an acceptance at international and regional levels to turn into pressures that are exerted on the Yemeni negotiator till his speech which calls for a political settlement becomes a kind of a surprising demand within this mess.

The question posed by the Yemeni negotiations and the context of the negotiating speech is neither related to the analysis of the war or the settlements and their abilities, nor to the standing before the opposed forces in confrontations which prevail in the region from its East to the West and from its North to its South, it is a question about the speech and the mechanism of its emergence within an international and regional equation that surrounds the negotiation and sponsoring it, and at the same time taking consideration of the negotiation about the settlement in Syria and sponsoring making the settlement in it as in Yemen. Any observer can notice the duality of the standards, selectivity, and the discretionary in the approach of the Syrian and the Yemeni files in terms of the same forces, institutions, and authorities, as he can observe that rendering the Yemini negotiator to a negotiating speech that has its special Yemeni conditions is a reason to weaken it and to move it to the passive defense negotiating site, by depriving it from the opportunity of using authorities of the negotiation which is dedicated to Syria as a power plea, a means to prove, and a measure of fairness.

The proposal here is that the Yemeni negotiator has to come out of the fear of his accusation of the involvement in a game or the regional alliances that link the fate of Yemen with them, but he alienated under the fear of this accusation and through the strength of this extortion in order to be positioned behind the privacy of pure Yemeni authorities in order to prove his patriotism, but it is an implicit accomplishment to isolate him in this privacy which the sponsors of the regional and international negotiation want. The needed is not a political or a fatal linkage but a standard linkage, which compares the situation of the Syrian opposition which is adopted by the same forces which fight in Yemen against the national forces under the slogan of supporting the legitimacy, and which requires a formula for the settlement that ensures the departure of the Syrian President, while it requires in Yemen the admission of the national forces of his presence and makes him out of debate. Moreover these forces see that a unified government in Syria is the minimum need, while they find it difficult to ensure such of this government for the Yemeni national forces, they call the Yemeni national forces to lay down their arms first then to talk in politics, while they send more of weapons to the forces which they support in Syria and refuse to talk about withdrawing their weapons.

The meaning of the mechanisms of producing the negotiating speech is starting from the approach that the international and the regional communities are preoccupied with two large wars in the region, namely the war of Syria and the war of Yemen, and that the UN resolutions which are related to the negotiation towards a political solution in both of them are the title of the UN effort for the past months and now. The similar and the different elements between the titles and the slogans of the negotiation in the two cases form a moral criterion for the international and the regional communities in presenting legal, political, and moral references in deep serious crises such as the wars in Syria and Yemen. Any comparison between the Syrian opposition and the Yemeni national forces will make the scale of the national forces outweighing in comparison with what is proposed to the Syrian opposition. The Yemeni national forces  according to the admission of their enemies are the active force which fights the terrorism in Yemen, while the friends of the Syrian opposition and the friends of its friends say that its major problem is the structural confusion between its formations and the terrorist organizations, furthermore, since the beginning of the Saudi war the Yemeni national forces have not  any relation with the abroad whether by land, sea, or air, so it is not possible to accuse them that they rely on the external support, while the leaderships of the Syrian opposition and their operational rooms are positioning in the capitals of the two neighboring countries of Syria with open borders with them, they are Turkey and Jordan. In Syria and Yemen the talk is about forces that oppose the President of the country and his supporters, but in Yemen these forces were able to oblige the President to depart because he has not any opportunity to fight with Yemeni forces, while the Syrian opposition failed to control over any of the major cities despite what they were interested of support from the abroad, and the confusion of its relation with the terrorist organizations, this was before the Russian intervention in Syria and the Saudi war on Yemen. So it is enough to estimate the size of the balances of the popular forces in the two countries for each of the campaigns of the president and his opponents. The question is if the Syrian opposition despite all the confusions of its relationship with the terrorism and all the support which it received was able to have control over the Syrian geography then would anyone ask it through a UN resolution to withdraw, to deliver its weapons, and to announce the acceptance to return to the confines of “the legitimacy”?

The acceptance of the Yemeni national forces of an equal treatment to the Syrian opposition according to  the standards of the international projects of the settlements specially what is presented by the UN envoys is in itself a waiver by the Yemeni national forces of the rights of moral and political superiority , that is not possible to debate of its credibility and its stability, so it must be appreciated by the international authorities  which are involved in sponsoring the settlements in Syria and Yemen  and in drawing a legal unified framework for them,  by answering questions regarding that the priority is the submission of the armed opposition to the legitimacy, not to the political settlement. So will the concerned in the crises of Yemen and Syria accept to apply this principle in the two countries?  If the priority is for a settlement that allows the unification of the efforts in the war on terrorism and the admission that there is a crisis that is not solved neither by Yes for the legitimacy, nor by No for the head of the regime, and that the exit of the crisis requires a settlement that is translated by a unified government that  sponsors  the participation in the war on terrorism, and puts a new constitution to the countries in preparation for elections in which the people express their desire  in the ballot boxes about who will take over the responsibility of leading their country. then the acceptance of this ceiling is a waiver by the Syrian country and a parallel waiver by the Yemeni national forces. So what the Syrian president can say is that his military control over most of the Syrian territories despite all the confusions related to the position of the opposition and its interaction with the terrorism in addition to the support of armies, intelligence services, and the open borders, and his re-election constitutionally are sufficient reasons to consider the acceptance of this settlement a waiver. While the Yemeni national forces can say that their acceptance of that solution is a waiver, because they have proven their popularity and their ability to win in a Yemeni Yemeni fight, and the return of the “legitimacy” to a part of Yemen has been achieved only by a major foreign war, but this legitimacy is false and has no constitution after the mandate of the President ended and after the Security Council has demanded him of immediate elections.

The Yemeni negotiator can say that if the international community considers that the minimum possible degree which the Syrian opposition and its supporters can  accept it is a unified government that sponsors the participation in the war on terrorism, and paves the way for new constitution and elections without mentioning the fate of weapons and the withdrawals, but leaving them as duties to the unified government then it cannot be accepted that this is the higher aspiration of the Yemeni national forces, and if the presidency in Syria is a matter that is related to the Syrians themselves, so it not conceivable that the presidency in Yemen is an international issue that the Yemenis have not the right to express it, and if the Syrian opposition has the right of asking for a transition ruling body despite the differences between its position  and the pure position of the Yemeni national forces, then the acceptance of that demand makes its similar legitimate to the Yemenis.

The Yemeni national forces were in a position of a moral superiority against the unfair ignoble international community, but the position of this community in front of  the Syrian position will grant the Yemeni negotiator papers of force, by saying we do not ask but what the international community agrees to give it to the Syrian opposition, so we call the Security Council to put unified standards for the Syrian and the Yemeni settlements that form an agenda for the wars and for the solutions for  the UN envoys and for the regional sponsors.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,