By Ayham Kamel

It may be tempting to view the plethora of recent gatherings -- the Arab League summit, the U.S.-Gulf Cooperation Council Strategic Cooperation Forum, and the Friends of Syria conference -- as evidence that the global community is getting more serious about addressing the violence in Syria. But the summits really just exposed the rifts among the relevant players that will prevent a viable and coordinated response. Syrian President Bashar al Assad, in turn, will profit from the lack of coherence; he will only nominally entertain Kofi Annan's peace plan as he maintains his grip on power, and the bloodshed will worsen.

International powers remain hesitant regarding any form of direct intervention. They considered initiatives calling for buffer or humanitarian zones, but ultimately no country seems prepared to act. Key powers appear to be pursuing their distinct policies, with only a hint of coordination.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar will provide extensive support -- including arms -- to the Syrian opposition, but are unlikely to supply the heavy arms that would lead to an immediate change in the balance of power. Heavy arms are more difficult to smuggle and training rebels would be much more challenging than during the Libyan conflict. Moreover, the escalation could provoke an un-calculated response from Assad's military. While their interests differ, the two powers see Assad's survival as a threat to their influence. Riyadh's purpose is to limit Iran's regional influence. Meanwhile, Doha has invested significant diplomatic and political capital in the struggle against Assad and any failure to deliver would represent a tangible setback to its prestige. Behind the armament policy is also a deep concern that if Assad regains control, Damascus and Tehran would aim to destabilize the al Saud and al Thani ruling families' grip on power.

Arming the rebels, who have had trouble obtaining ammunition sine the regime began its extensive military campaign in early February, will provide much needed psychological support and will help weaken Assad's forces. While the resolve of Syria's opposition will not abate, arms from the Gulf will neither arrive overnight nor will they immediately change the balance of military power, which is still heavily tilted in the regime's favor. An equally important element of the Gulf strategy is providing monetary incentives to officers in the Syrian army to incite defections. But Assad has built multiple safeguards to prevent defections, a tactic he inherited from his father.

The U.S. is willing to overlook, perhaps even support, GCC efforts to weaken Assad. But Washington is definitely not interested in playing an active role. It is concerned about Saudi Arabia's and Lebanon's support of Salafist rebels and al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri's call for jihad in Syria. While Sunni monarchies in the Gulf benefit from rising sectarianism in Syria, the U.S. interest in long-term regional stability could be compromised if the Sunni-Shia confrontations spread to Iraq and other countries. U.S. officials believe that a political settlement will be needed to prevent prolonged instability. Verbal support for the Annan process is a reflection of the desire to keep negotiations open, but U.S. officials are convinced that under current conditions the Annan plan will only enable Assad to retain power.

Assad will probably not implement key elements of the Annan peace plan, which calls for a halt of hostilities from all sides, and a negotiated settlement between the regime and the opposition. The regime views cooperation with the UN envoy as a way to secure the successes achieved by its military strategy and to gain some breathing space. While Annan is a shrewd diplomat, there are few reasons to think that success is in reach. Syria's opposition will probably not negotiate with Assad or agree to a settlement that keeps him in power. Meanwhile, there are no indications that the Lion of Damascus has reached a point where he would accept his own ouster.

Ayham Kamel is an analyst in Eurasia Group's Middle East and North Africa practice.

By David Bender

What exactly did Iraq wait 8 months for? 

It's been seven weeks since Iraq smashed the record for the longest period of time between an election and the formation of a government. But last week there was finally a breakthrough of sorts between the country's squabbling political factions. It's not yet a done deal, but it's now finally possible to speculate about what the next Iraqi government will look like -- and time to ask the question of whether it was all worth the wait. 

The deal struck last week between the Shia-dominated National Alliance, Sunni-backed Iraqiya, and the Kurdish alliance provides the basis for the next government. But it isn't a basis for a stable government. The agreement was an attempt to satisfy everyone in the short term, while delaying decisions on important political issues further into the future. The next government is likely to have little policy coherence, much infighting, and numerous contradictory agendas. That's a troublesome dynamic given that Iraq faces an impending onslaught of tough technical and political questions in 2011. The Kurds will press hard for progress on their territorial issues and their right to sign their own oil contracts, provincial governments will call for greater shares of the profits from Iraq's oil and gas, al Qaeda is attempting to reassert itself going after soft targets, and someone competent will need to direct and oversee the upcoming massive infrastructure expansion needed for the growing Iraqi oil industry.

The outlook for a government capable of managing all these challenges is not good, and the process that got us here was chaotic. Nouri al Maliki will remain prime minister after he skillfully navigated the long political limbo by using his incumbency to project a sense of inevitability that he would retain the premiership. This occurred despite the fact that nearly every other political bloc in the country despises him. Maliki's hold on the job was finally sealed when Iran brokered a deal in Qom, the Iranian city home to many of that's country's senior religious leaders, between Maliki and followers of firebrand Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who had previously declared they would sooner support the devil as prime minister. It's not clear what the Sadrists have been promised in exchange for their support, but they are likely to be a meaningful player in the next government. That's bad news for virtually everyone, because the Sadrists' hard-line nationalism, religious extremism, capacity for violence, and generally uncompromising attitude will make them a disruptive force in Iraqi politics.

But Maliki needed more than just Sadrist support to gain majority backing in parliament. He also looked to the Kurds, who had enough seats to give him a comfortable majority. The Kurds responded with a long list of demands, but ultimately were likely to support him. The United States, which had been keeping its distance from talks, feared that Iraq was heading toward a narrow Shia-Kurdish government that would exclude Sunnis from any meaningful political participation, increasing the risk of a spike in sectarian violence. Washington began working feverishly behind the scenes to push Iraqi politicians to find a compromise that would bring Iyad Allawi's largely Sunni Iraqiya into the next government. So the United States succeeded, sort of.

The White House and other leaders hailed the "power-sharing" agreement that would permit a national unity government to be formed when Parliament convened on Nov. 11. How much power will be shared remains unclear. In the deal, Iraqiya was offered the position of Speaker of Parliament, while Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, would remain president. For Iraqiya, which actually won two more seats than Maliki's State of Law, being given what is perceived as the third best position in the government was an insult. This despite the fact that the speaker, who has control over legislation in the parliament, is arguably more influential than the president, whose powers are largely symbolic. Under the deal, Allawi is to be named head of a newly created national security policy council, which in theory will check Maliki's control over the security forces.

But formally changing the chain of command in Iraq would require a highly unlikely constitutional change, and it seems unlikely that Maliki will ultimately agree to a significant reduction in his powers. He has argued that the new council will function as an advisory panel with no independent authority. If Allawi decides he is powerless in his new position, he could resign and become a forceful leader of the opposition.

Between an unclear Iraqiya role, an uncomfortably large Sadrist contingent, rising Kurdish demands, and no unity of purpose among any of the political groups, the prospects for the next government are not great. But the overall situation in Iraq will probably improve anyway. The next government isn't going to resolve much of Iraq's deep social and political dysfunction, but having it in place will finally allow the oil sector, budget, and infrastructure projects to begin to move ahead.

Was it worth the eight (soon to be nine) month wait? No.

But is it a good thing that there's likely to be a government by the new year? Absolutely.

David Bender is an analyst in Eurasia Group's Middle East practice.

By David Bender

Earlier this week, just as Iraq seemed to be finally settling on a new prime minister -- the incumbent, Nouri al-Maliki -- the Washington Post reported a largely overlooked but telling development: the Ministry of Interior had stripped hundreds of police officers in Anbar province of their rank. The problem is that these weren't just any cops: they are Sunnis and former members of the Awakening Councils, paramilitary forces once backed by the United States that had helped turn the tide of the insurgency in 2007 when they turned their guns on al Qaeda.

Now would seem a very strange time for the Iraqi government to be abandoning the Awakening, given that al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has lately shown some signs of reconstituting itself. But the dismissals are not about security. Rather, they're indicative of the current (and likely next) government's inability to envision a place for Sunnis in Iraq's future. And they're a sign of the fundamental sectarian dysfunction that is likely to define Iraqi politics and society for years to come.

When Sunnis in western Iraq agreed to stop shooting at U.S. Marines and start fighting AQI in 2007, the United States was more than happy to welcome them with money and weapons. Using the Awakening Councils to help combat al Qaeda was a critical element of General David Petraeus's strategy ending Iraq's civil war by making the Sunnis part of the solution rather than problem. The gambit was a big success in reversing the tide of the war, but it gradually raised fears among the Shia. Decades of repression under Sunni-dominated governments and the military had helped convince many of the newly empowered Shia leaders that the well-armed and battle-tested Awakening Councils might eventually become a base for a Sunni renaissance. These Shia leaders went along with an American plan to start integrating the Awakening Councils into the Iraqi police and military starting in 2008, but only grudgingly; and few of the government jobs that were promised to Sunni fighters in recent years have materialized.

Having boycotted the 2005 elections, Sunnis participated fully in last March's vote, turning out en masse for Iraqiyya, a nonsectarian political alliance led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shia (who, once upon a time, was also a Baathist, although he turned against the party in the 1970s and Saddam Hussein tried to have him killed with an axe). Iraqiyya won more seats in the election that either Maliki's (nominally nonsectarian but actually largely Shia) State of Law or the Shia sectarian Iraqi National Alliance (INA). But Sunnis saw their preferences ignored when the two Shia coalitions formally merged and declared themselves the largest political bloc in parliament. Now Allawi and the Sunnis are trapped on the sidelines and forced to watch as Shia kingmakers decide who will lead the next government.

That person -- and it seems extremely likely to be Maliki -- will have to choose how to handle the Sunnis. On the one hand, there's no question it would help stabilize Iraq if he made a genuine effort to reach out to the Sunnis and give that disenfranchised community meaningful political influence and a role in the next government. But a combination of an almost implacable Shia fear of a Sunni resurgence and a sense that, after centuries of repression, this is the Shia's moment means that bold outreach is unlikely. Instead, some Sunni groups may be bought off in order to give the next government a veneer of sectarian diversity but little more.

The big question is how will the Sunnis respond? Should they decide they have no stake in the success of the next government, what will be their next move? Sunnis could cease their security cooperation with Baghdad, but a return to the sort of civil war we saw between 2005 and 2007 is unlikely. The Iraqi government of today, for all its problems, is significantly more stable than it was in 2005, and Iraqi security forces are dramatically more capable. Still, parallel efforts -- not cooperation but a sharing of similar goals -- by disaffected Sunnis and an AQI looking to reconstitute -- could keep Baghdad and Iraq's west violent and unstable for years to come.

David Bender is a Middle East Analyst at Eurasia Group.