Veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN-Arab League envoy for Syria, has insisted throughout his career that there is no “hopeless situation,” but he has not managed to find a magical solution to end Syria’s civil war.
And the 79-year-old Brahimi, who took on the job last August after predecessor and former UN chief Kofi Annan threw in the towel, is now ready to give up too.
Annan resigned on Aug. 2, frustrated by the division between supporters in the West and the Arab world of those fighting to oust Bashar Assad and traditional backers of the Syrian president, principally Russia and China.
Earlier in the week, a senior aide to Brahimi told AFP he “thinks of it (resigning) every day” but would not decide until at least the middle of May.
Brahimi thinks that every step he takes is countered with 10 steps backwards by the Arab states. And now it looks like the Americans will increase their military support (to the rebels), so he feels that he is useless in his role, according to the aide.
If Brahimi quits, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is unlikely to appoint a replacement quickly and could even take on the job himself, a UN diplomat said on Thursday. Indeed, Brahimi could keep a role as an advisor to Ban on Syria or the Middle East, according to envoys.
“Ban will not rush to appoint a third person,” added another Security Council diplomat. “You have had Annan, you have had Brahimi — are you going to get someone who can do better than them?” Nikolaos Van Dam, a former Dutch diplomat specializing in the Middle East, told AFP that “Brahimi had the additional advantage of being an Arab personality with enormous political experience.”
“His mission was made a kind of ‘mission impossible’... I do not know of any potential successor to Mr Brahimi who could as yet succeed in this extremely difficult job, certainly not as long as the UN and Arab League parties only theoretically support the Geneva principles, but do not do so in practice,” Van Dam said.
