Decentralizing the Syrian peace process is a pragmatic answer to the fact that the rebels don’t have a central authority, and that it is very likely that some factions will continue fighting when an armistice is concluded.

Can a decentralised transitional power model – as proposed in ‘Solving the Syrian conflict starts with building trust’ - really be carried out by western diplomats who have already demonstrated the deficiencies of their knowledge of Syria?

There has been a failure of public diplomacy by the US, the UK, France and Germany to serve the interests of stability in either Serbia or Syria, and thus a failure to strengthen or secure both ‘western’ interests, and the interests of the poor people of these two countries.

A locally-focused, bottom-up approach which puts Syrian interests first offers a prospective path for transition and a peaceful settlement to the conflict.   

The Lebanonization of Syria means the latter could face a long period of instability and rivalry among sectarian, tribal, and other competitors for power, resources, and status. 

With the current hardening of the sense of duality between Syrian government and opposition, good faith negotiations seem even further away.  The vision of an inclusive Syria in which all political factions and sectarian communities play a part is giving way to a desire of each to destroy their perceived [...]

The Sri Lanka model – where a long, low-intensity civil war reached a violent, bloody climax; yet its architects remain in power and have escaped formal sanction by the international community – may have demonstrated to Assad that a brutal, uncompromising approach to internal dissent does not have to end [...]

In the face of continued stalemate between the Syrian government and the opposition, a useful next step would be to explore the possibility of setting an agenda of issues that could be the basis of negotiations.

It is necessary to consider what role NGOs might now play in Syria – particularly to support the mediation efforts of former UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan – in order to break what seems to be a continual downward spiral, with real dangers of civil war.