Rouhani Should Recast Relations in the Levant

AL-MONITOR

JUNE 18

Giandomenico Picco 

My childhood was shaped emotionally, politically and physically by the Cold War. The Iron Curtain stood a 20-minute drive from my childhood home. The borders adjacent to my small village in the eastern Alps changed during my grandfather's lifetime, that of my father and during my own. Now, thanks to the collapse of communism and the expansion of the European Union, there is no border.

In my professional life, I have journeyed from the Hindu Kush to the shores of the Mediterranean, mostly during times of war. The most constant component of this journey across borders invented by past generations has been change. Change is also the most difficult aspect in political leaders’ vision, for change means the unknown, and the unknown requires courage. Yet, only those who have the courage to walk into the unknown can build a better tomorrow.

The right type of change is still missing from the Middle East. The Levant has mutated over the last decade or so. Its very architecture — constructed by European powers and rooted in the Sykes-Picot agreements of 1916 — appears to be falling part. Yet, its leaders have shown scant courage when it comes to embracing change without weapons and resort to arms. It is evident that the fire of the Shiite-Sunni divide has played quite a role, as have unresolved ethnic divisions among Arabs, Jews, Persians, Turks and Kurds.

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