Syria's political and armed opposition is confused

A week of marathon meetings at the National Coalition in Istanbul was not enough to reunite Syrian opposition factions. How much time does the opposition need to unite, and bridge the gap among its countries in the region? How much time does it need to make a rapprochement between the military and the politicians? More importantly, how much time will they need to harmonise with the delegation of the Syrian regime at the Geneva conference? Syrians will likely shed rivers of blood before this happens. We are watching an absurd theatre whose heroes are not in Istanbul, but elsewhere. The city of Doha has acquired the loyalty of some of the opposition supported by the Muslim Brotherhood, but Riyadh launched a counter-attack on the Brotherhood-Qatari dominance. They supported the Christian Michel Kilo and his fellow leftist secular trend, by providing them substantial media coverage on the Arabia channel and in the Middle East pages and Hayat newspapers. The Coalition took too much time to consider its expansion by adding 25 to 30 new members, none of whom affiliated to Qatar or the Muslim Brotherhood. Behind all objections stood Doha and Ankara. They stood by their baby born from a marriage of convenience between the two cities. They wanted to defend their influence and the impact of the preparations for the Geneva conference. Meanwhile, head of the transitional government Ghassan Hito, is closely watching the fate of his government. He knows that he came from nowhere and will end up there, but he still hopes for a comprehensive deal that will make him prime minister.  Such a deal looks impossible without regional and International consensus which the Friends of Syria meetings in Oman have so far failed to achieve. We have seen this many times, all attempts to expand the National Council have failed resoundingly and when Hillary Clinton issued its death certificate a new creature was created; the national coalition. Michelle Kilo and Farah Atassi were supposed to be members of the coalition, but instead they resigned. Sheikh Ahmed Maaz Khatib seems to have another tactic to oppose the coalition from within. Will this equation continue, or is the moment of separation about to knock on the door? The parameters of the opposition will become clearer, after meetings in Cairo have created a coordinating body which seeks to isolated internal opposition. The armed opposition is no less confused than the political opposition. More than 120 armed militia factions are fighting in Syria who do not recognise the regime or the opposition, they only aim to build an Islamic state. At the far corner of the north - eastern Syria Kurdish forces lie in wait for the regime and the opposition. They will not return to rule under the regime and aim to grab as many concessions as possible to build a separate Kurdish entity. The opposition hasn’t shown the sense of national responsibility, and so Syria is burning whilst the opposition fights, they are lost in their lust for money and power which has turned into incurable disease for them . The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.