Ms Jansen argues that without foreign interference the Syrian government’s initial crackdown would have ended the Arab Spring protests with limited casualties and the government would have initiated promised reforms. When he first became president in 2000 Bashar al-Assad encouraged a series of national and regional forums to explore democratic reform during a movement known as the “Damascus Spring”. The 2012 constitution allows the formation of political parties provided they recognise the unity of the Syrian state and practice religious tolerance, and it restricts the future rule of the Syrian President (including Assad himself) to two seven year terms. The 2012 reforms may well have been Syria’s Sunningdale moment, for any future peace settlement will surely be based on something similar. But in 2012 Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the former colonial powers Britain and France were more interested in regime change than democracy for the Syrian people.

Source: The Irish Times December 12, 2019 00:22 UTC