There is no good news today. The triple bombings in Iraq and the up in Daesh attacks may be seen as a sign of a desperate last stand but the devastation and loss of life is massive. That the Russians and the US stalled on the Syrian peace initiative — peppered by the fresh bursts of violence and conflict — makes for depressing news.
And even the slight silver lining on this grey cloud hanging over the region lost its sheen after the Houthi rebels in Yemen backed off their commitments and to all ends and purposes sabotaged the talks because they do not intend to return occupied territory to the government or surrender their arms, both demands made by the UN under the aegis of the Security Council.
Now that the government has also taken a hard stand and refused to continue a charade unless these two resolutions are complied with, the situation in Yemen has worsened to the crisis point again. It is very likely that the sound of guns will again reverberate unless some third party intervention like the GCC powerhouse steps in.
As such, after weeks of hope that better sense would prevail, all three fronts have returned to square one and things look bleak.
The death toll keeps increasing and no one seems to take this seriously enough. It is just a series of statistics. Over 700 people died in the Iraq bombings. They were human beings, not numbers. Over 50 fighters from the rival factions of rebel Jaish Al-Islam and Al-Qaeda were killed in the latest clash.
Even here the UN says it is impossible to get these warring factions to sit down unless there is a credible cease-fire and that option seems to be receding swiftly.
The irony is that more rebel factions seem to grow out of the major groups and the splinters are becoming so many that it is self-defeating to bring them all under a non-parochial umbrella as people of the same country with what will be a common destiny in the long term.
The only viable alternative now is for the UN or the GCC enclave to push forward and place pressure wherever they can to ensure that peace is not killed.
And even the slight silver lining on this grey cloud hanging over the region lost its sheen after the Houthi rebels in Yemen backed off their commitments and to all ends and purposes sabotaged the talks because they do not intend to return occupied territory to the government or surrender their arms, both demands made by the UN under the aegis of the Security Council.
Now that the government has also taken a hard stand and refused to continue a charade unless these two resolutions are complied with, the situation in Yemen has worsened to the crisis point again. It is very likely that the sound of guns will again reverberate unless some third party intervention like the GCC powerhouse steps in.
As such, after weeks of hope that better sense would prevail, all three fronts have returned to square one and things look bleak.
The death toll keeps increasing and no one seems to take this seriously enough. It is just a series of statistics. Over 700 people died in the Iraq bombings. They were human beings, not numbers. Over 50 fighters from the rival factions of rebel Jaish Al-Islam and Al-Qaeda were killed in the latest clash.
Even here the UN says it is impossible to get these warring factions to sit down unless there is a credible cease-fire and that option seems to be receding swiftly.
The irony is that more rebel factions seem to grow out of the major groups and the splinters are becoming so many that it is self-defeating to bring them all under a non-parochial umbrella as people of the same country with what will be a common destiny in the long term.
The only viable alternative now is for the UN or the GCC enclave to push forward and place pressure wherever they can to ensure that peace is not killed.
