UA-69458566-1

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

The Syrian Opposition’s Political Demands

By Genevieve Casagrande with Jennifer Cafarella

Key Takeaway: The ongoing Vienna process will likely fail to end the Syrian Civil War because it does not provide adequate incentives to Syria’s powerful armed opposition factions to lay down arms. The Vienna process relies on agreements made between international powerbrokers independent from the demands of both pro- and anti-regime Syrian factions. No single Syrian opposition group is able to speak for a majority of the Syrian armed opposition, and powerbrokers have the potential to spoil the Vienna process. This chart highlights the political demands made by the various elements of the Syrian opposition in order to show the kinds of endstates they seek, the frictions that will emerge should they or others negotiate within the Vienna framework, and the range of issues that effective negotiations must ultimately address.  

Read the full report here.