The Gulf conflict and the Syrian crisis

Observers of the Syrian conflict in the international community have been watching closely for any indications that the struggle is shifting to yet a new phase, one that may finally portend an endgame to more than six years of brutal warfare. But perhaps surprisingly, these changes trace their roots not to Syria but rather nearly 1,000 miles away: the Gulf.

Here, a simmering diplomatic crisis – where Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and their allies seek to isolate Qatar – appears to be the direct, proximate cause of movement on the Syrian front. Several notable developments in recent weeks indicate that the international backers of the Syrian opposition have reconciled themselves to the facts on the ground and the waning chances of success for the groups they have supported until now. The upshot is that the Gulf countries and Turkey seem to have accepted that they will not topple the Syrian regime, and thus an end to the conflict may be taking shape.

One of the most significant events, which has garnered little attention in the international press given the recent focus on all things North Korea and Russia, is the early August 2017 visit of the Saudi Foreign Minister, Adel Al-Jubeir, to the headquarters of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), the internationally-recognised representatives of the moderate opposition forces. During this meeting, Al-Jubeir informed the assembled members that the time had come to envision a new solution to the Syrian conflict that reflected the situation both on the ground in Syria and around the region as well. Though perhaps not explicitly stated, there was little confusion among the SNC members about Al-Jubeir’s message – the shrinking territory controlled by the opposition, the strength of the combined forces of the Assad government and its allies, and the new political realities brought to the fore by the Gulf diplomatic spat combined to alter the status quo.

Though the Saudi government issued an official denial that Al-Jubeir had acknowledged that Al-Assad was likely to continue as president in a post-conflict Syria, Riyadh has nonetheless given other signals that it is shifting from its adamant insistence on Al-Assad’s overthrow to a far more moderate position.

Read: Timeline of the Arab rift with Qatar

Riyad Hijab, the former Syrian prime minister who defected to the opposition in 2012 and has since assumed a position as the head of the Supreme Negotiations Committee (SNC), has frustrated the Saudis with his intransigent, uncompromising stances and rumours abound that Riyadh will seek his ouster in the coming days. Saudi officials seem far more sympathetic to the views of Ahmad Al-Jarba, leader of Syria’s Tomorrow Movement and former head of the SNC, who recently said from Cairo: “The shortest way to solve the problem in Syria is to talk to Moscow, based on realism, not fantasia.”

A second, but equally significant, development that points toward a possible resolution of the Syrian conflict is the recent decision by the Turkish government to vastly reduce its payments to the SNC. Opposition websites reported that Turkish funding was slashed by $320,000 per month, which prompted the Secretary-General of the SNC, Nazir Al-Hakim, a leading member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, to reduce the salaries of coalition members. It is here that we can deduce the contours of the Gulf dispute on the Syrian crisis – one of the chief accusations of the Saudi-UAE-Egyptian alliance was that Qatar had drawn too close to Iran. Qatar’s principal regional ally, of course, is Turkey, and any discussions between Iran and the Qatari-Turkish side regarding closer cooperation will doubtlessly include provisions that favour Iran’s closest regional ally, Bashar Al-Asad.

Read: Qatar renews call for prosecution of Syria war crimes

As for Saudi Arabia, it has dealt with these new developments in Syria with a flexibility and realism not always characteristic in Riyadh. The Saudis supported the agreement to de-escalate the fighting in southwest Syria last June and the early August truce in Homs that was achieved with Jordanian mediation (Jordan is likewise active as an intermediary brokering a ceasefire in eastern Ghouta, though these discussions are still being negotiated between Riyadh and Damascus). Perhaps surprisingly, the United Arab Emirates has been nearly silent on new developments in Syria. However, Abu Dhabi has also signalled a willingness to enter into indirect contacts with Damascus, as the Emirati government views its principal aim as the isolation of Muslim Brotherhood, both regionally and from any role in achieving a political solution in Syria. Abu Dhabi also wants to deny Qatar the opportunity to use the Muslim Brotherhood elsewhere in the Middle East.

For its part, Qatar’s own influence in the Syria conflict has waned and possibly even shifted.  Several years ago, Qatar was the prime move in arranging Riyad Hijab’s aforementioned defection from the Syrian government to the opposition; the Qataris are purported to have secured his allegiance with large sums of cash. But the Gulf diplomatic dispute has forced Qatar to seek new alliances, and as the country has begun bridging gaps with Iran and Iraq at the expense of its Arab gulf neighbours, so too has it begun to act more in concert with the pro-Assad policies of its new allies.

#QatatGate

However, Doha still has great influence in Idlib province, the principal area of opposition control in Syria today. It was Al Jazeera, the controversial Qatari television network which the Saudis and Emiratis have demanded be shut down, which broadcast an exclusive interview with the leader of the Nusra Front (recently renamed Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham), Abu Mohammed Al-Joulani, and it was Doha which convinced him to sever his allegiance to Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Al-Qaeda. Doha also managed to convince Al-Joulani to show his face on camera for the first time during the interview. Doha is likely to rely on its ally Turkey to help reach a political solution in Syria and find a way to secure the safety of opposition fighters in Idlib, along the Turkish border.

The Syrian opposition, reading the signals emanating from Riyadh and Doha as an impending loss of financial and diplomatic backing, are therefore undergoing a period of “political labour, during which they will either adapt and agree to be part of a post-conflict Syrian government that will not be constituted on the terms they had previously sought, or otherwise be marginalised from the political arena. The next major milestone will be the conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, where Syrian government and opposition representatives will meet. On the agenda will be identifying ceasefire areas, and starting a post-conflict transition in Syria, and reconstruction of the country’s battered infrastructure.

Unspoken, but on the agenda nonetheless, will be a bitter acknowledgement by the opposition and its international backers that the situation has changed, and they must now adapt to the new reality in which the Syrian government has the upper hand.

Maria Al Makahleh also contributed to writing this piece

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.