Conflict in Syria will be longer, costlier

There is a lot of concern "about what is now called the spillover effect on Lebanon from Syria and this manifests itself in immense tensions and split, mainly between the pro-Syrian regime and anti-regime there", according to a senior expert on the Levant and Near East affairs here today. Nadim Shehada, a leading fellow in the Middle East section at the prominent think tank, Chatham House, which focuses on Internatinal relations, told kuna in an exclusive interview the Lebanese government has adopted a policy of "disassociation and this has not really worked". This is due to the fact that Hezbollah, which is part of the Lebanese government, is openly involved in the conflict in Syria, Shehada, who is of lebanese origin, noted. Hence Hezbollah is contradicting the policy of the Lebanese government in which it is part of, the expert added. Shehada was previously lecturing at St. Antony College, Oxford university. He pointed out that the measures adopted by the GCC States against Hezbollah are going to adversely affect the party. Looking into the Lebanese experience in the recent decades, he stressed that the Lebanese have at least 30 years experience in dealing with their internal problems "as we know how to live together and how to reach compromises and the civil society and the private sector can run itself". Speaking about his vision of "Syria after Assad", Shehada said that "Syria would be a bit like that". He believed that the Syrians would have to learn from scratch". In answer to another question, he said that two sides in the Syrian conflict are not equal and one side,:the regime, is getting "full" support from its allies such as Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. On the other hand, the rebels are "unfortunately losing ground, but the ultimate result is that the Syrian regime will never recover its authority as it has reached the point of no return". He underscored that: "It is a matter of time and cost". Furthermore, Shehada warned against "the lack of coherence, policy and intervention from the international community, and particularly the west, to help the Syrian people and this is only making the conflict longer and costlier". "If they had intervened two years ago, we would have saved a 100,000 lives", who died so far in the civil war. Referring to the Syrian refugees in Lebanon since the beginning of the tragedy, Shehada estimated that there are nearly a million of them now in the country and this is putting an immense pressure on aspects of life there.