While attention has been focused on if or when the Geneva conference on Syria will be convened, one element of the whole equation remains less documented: the role of the UN in a post-conflict Syria. The scope of the UN mission will affect the very viability of any Geneva plan for the transitional period in Syria. This is why at the UN headquarters in New York, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in coordination with the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) have worked on various scenarios that each determine the level of UN commitment required.

The ideal scenario is a Geneva conference that concludes with a political agreement between both sides, followed by the deployment of UN peacekeepers to help local forces to bring safety back to the population. UN officials talk about “a path to political transition” that could include remnants of the old regime with elements of the opposition.

But all the stakeholders have their own vision of a “transition.” The United States has so far declared that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s departure is a necessary outcome of the transition, and has opposed the participation of Iran. Russia insists no such preconditions can be imposed. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem recently declared, “We head to Geneva not to hand over power to another side.”[1] As a result, planners in the UN Secretariat have no illusions about the likelihood of such scenario.

A second and more probable scenario — called “the gray scenario” by the officials interviewed — is one in which both sides agree to stop the fighting, but with fringes such as Jihadi fighters and loyalists to the regime who prolong the battle in specific areas of the country. This fear is driven by the last developments on the battleground. The battle of Qusair — the city that fell to Hezbollah and Syrian regime forces on June 5 — reflected the endurance of Assad and put him in a better position for bargaining than he was in when the United States and Russia first discussed Geneva II.

As a result, the US administration decided to change its policy of arming the rebels. Although the Obama shift was officially a response to the revelation on the use of chemical weapons by the regime, the calculus is clearly to help the rebels to regain some momentum on the ground before the peace conference. As long as both sides are being armed, the prospect of peace, or peacekeeping, remains unclear.