Here are the possible Syria scenarios from my point of view (others may have different scenarios) based on my information and experience.
The First Scenario
The Russians will ask Bashar Assad, while he is in Moscow (a mandatory condition), to stay for a long visit in order to organize the situation in Syria. Then they will name a military or civilian military council of several people who are close to the regime. This council, supported by Russia, will then name a transitional government in which there will be some faces of the opposition and open a discussion. This transitional government with some opposition figures in it, will open a dialogue with Turkey to expand the council by including specific names and extending its control to the areas controlled by Turkey. The council will then call for parliamentary elections under international supervision (Russia, the United Nations and other countries) in all Syrian regions, including the north-east controlled by the Americans and the PYD. If the de facto authorities there do not agree, there are several alternatives.
After that, this new council will appoint a new government and elect a president according to the 1950-Constitution (the president will be elected by the People’s Assembly for four years), and during and after that, an economic and social policy will be adopted to build a new Syria, and the military presence of several countries will be legitimized with agreements to maintain military bases approved by the People’s Assembly for a period of 10 years.
The Second Scenario
A group of Syrians in the areas outside the control of the regime begin to hold small local conferences that produce real representatives of these areas, and then the representatives meet in larger areas to elect their representatives in a larger area, and the third election is for all of northern Syria. Those representatives who enjoy half a real representation set their vision for the region and the mechanism of expansion, relying on the Turkish and Russian understanding to manage their areas. A full programme can be drawn up for this work and its course.
The Third Scenario
The Americans, Russians, Turks and Europeans name Syrian representatives to hold a long-term conference that lays the foundations of the new Syria, and the conferees (whose number must be large) elect representatives to be named by a Security Council resolution as an interim body to govern Syria, leaving the Russians to deal with the status of Assad in exchange for certain gains for them. After that, this council will name a new government and call for parliamentary elections under international supervision.
The Fourth Scenario
The Americans continue to turn their backs on the Syrian disaster and are only interested in the East Euphrates areas to create a semi-independent region under the control of the PYD and start new fighting in those areas between Arabs and Kurds for long years reminiscent of Iraq between 2004 and 2009, but for a longer period of time and adding to it a Turkish-Kurdish conflict that establishes a new dimension until an American administration comes to find real solutions instead of the mockery they have been doing since 2011. In other regions, new conflicts are generated and each region will have a de facto authority separate from what is around it. Even in the regime areas, we will see suspicious leaders who do not listen to anyone.
The Fifth Scenario
Syria enters a new pattern of conflict that is a mixture of Afghanization and Somalization (chaos and warlords everywhere) until something big changes after decades.
Final Remarks
The first three scenarios require a Syrian elite to work on them, and the same elite prevents the fourth and fifth scenarios from happening. What we should all know, and what the Russians and others know, is that there is no hope or possibility of Bashar Assad’s survival except as one of the warlords in the fifth scenario.
I believe the United States is capable of resolving the situation in Syria but has never been willing to do so. Also, the elite I am talking about has nothing to do with the Coalition or similar groups. There are many honorable Syrians with intelligence and integrity.
