Syria stalemate 

(MENAFN - Arab News) The current eerie stalemate on Syria reminds one the quote made by ex-PM of Singapore, late Lee Kwan Yew, who said that when two elephants fight it is the grass which suffers.

Now since Russia is digging its heels on Syria, we may see more violence and loss of innocent lives and massive destruction of properties as witnessed in Homs and other battlegrounds.

The OIC should intervene immediately with some wise ideas, and try to bring all Syrian factions to conflict, both inside and outside around the table and hammer out a new consensus without any further loss of lives - first halt all violence. The alternative to making bold moves and compromises is prolonged civil war fuelled by increased flow of arms to both the Assad regime and the SNC which will definitely fragment the country on sectarian and ethnic lines which will spill over into neighboring countries. The OIC should first bring together all warring factions around the most compelling denominators of that they are all Arabs and share the same core religious beliefs. Even without further civil war, the Assad regime will not survive for it has lost all moral values and has greatly diminished its legitimacy in the eyes of its own people.

With such massive humanitarian crisis and destruction of properties and infrastructures there will not be any vanquished or victors - we will see another Iraq and more regional instability, impoverishment and greater neo-colonialism and pseudo imperialism. However evil the regime is, armed conflict or civil war is not an answer.