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Russia had one simple demand on the UN draft resolution on Syria: the resolution must not allow for military intervention. In fact, it must ban intervention specifically in the text.
Well, the UN negotiators haven’t gone that far, to my knowledge. But they did drop the demand that Bashar al-Assad step down and hand over control of the country to his deputy.
Diplomats at the UN Security Council have watered down a resolution on Syria in an apparent attempt to overcome Russian objections to an earlier draft.
The revised text – seen by the BBC – drops the call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to hand over powers to his deputy – the key part of a peace plan proposed by the Arab League.
It also removes a reference to stopping the flow of arms to Syria.
The flow of arms is crucial, considering that so many of them come from Russia. But Russia has been noncommittal on the revised document, according to the BBC, although their ambassador acknowledged progress.
This is quite a comedown from what the Arab League and Western powers wanted out of a UN draft. It basically waters it down to nothing. And it comes at a time when protesters are marking the 30th anniversary of the massacre in Hama by splashing red paint in the streets. One activist group claimed that another 40 protesters died yesterday in fighting. We’re approaching a war-zone level of daily casualties.
Meanwhile, there’s a new effort toward a possible exile for Assad being discussed by Arab as well as US leaders. Three Arab countries have offered to host Assad if he agrees to leave the country. But Assad has not been contacted through back channels to determine if he would agree to the plan. So that looks like a pipe dream to me.
And with the UN resolution going backward, Assad has arguably more, and not less, leverage to continue his reign of terror.
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Where are all the ‘bomb them for humanitarian reason’ (aka r2p) supporters when we need them.
Syrians have as much right to demand that Obama is exiled, preferably to a Muslim country, where he will get a rousing reception, considering all the criminal acts he has committed. However, since U.S. provides most of the funding for the U.N. this is not likely to happen. So lets just lay off Syria and Iran, and let destiny take its course. America is just as brutal as Syria, probably much more so. But at least we do it in other countries, not at home. The number of people we have killed in Iraq far outnumbers the number of people Assad killed. I know we are doing it for good cause, oil, and Assad is doing it to stay in power. We are trying to get a regime change on the cheap, but I doubt if this will happen. He is Russia’s client, and I believe they are not going to let us in so easily. And they shouldn’t.
yeppers.
The sad thing is that if all of the limousine liberals and neocons would have butted-the-fuck-out of the Arab Spring, not only would Ghaddafi have been ousted peacefully, but Assad might also already have been ousted.
Notice that the Eqyptian Moment started to turn sour once Clinton et al. got involved by forcing Mubarak to step down in favor of the faceless military thrall.
This is the problem when outsiders try to “help”.
You dream.
None of these guys get ousted peacefully.
It’s terrible when people die. But we really need to mind our own business.
The record of U.S. intervention is 100% that locals are left much worse off. See Kinzer’s Overthrow for examples.
The arms thing is disappointing. Russia’s got no countenance for that. There’s no case for demanding that they be allowed to continue to supply arms to a thug.
The arguments can be reduced to whose arms and whose thugs. Why should the west have a monopoly? Balance is needed. Russia should give them a nuke.
Amen sister.