The biggest hurdle in the way of UN action is Russia, which has warned that it will use its veto power in the Security Council to prevent further sanctions or the threat of a multinational force being used against this regime. Despite this, it is time for the international community to intervene. Claims of sovereignty do not give a government the right to massacre its own people and the Syrian regime needs to be removed. Mr Annan, given his moral authority and official position, needs to come out in favour of this.
While recognising the need to remove Assad from power, it should also be kept in mind that the resistance has some unsavoury characters of its own. The presence of Islamist groups in the opposition is certainly a worry as no one would want a post-Assad set-up to include groups that endorse suicide bombings and who want to impose their own version of faith on the country. Here, too, the onus will be on the international community to ensure that the transition of power in Syria is smooth and that elections are held in a fair and timely manner. The power void in Syria may end up being filled by groups that are as undemocratic as Assad without the right kind of help from the world.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 20th, 2012.
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Looks like outposts are recolonized one by one, same way Libya was dragged back into western oil companies clutches. The only sane country is Russia yet somehow the corporate media trumpeting the the Anglo American policies as their news bites. Big war is coming, pawns are being rearranged. The older pawns (Gaddhafi, Mubarak, Assad) were not that effective in spear heading imperialist policies so are being replaced one by one. Stay tuned all nation states will be taken down one by one.
Even The Express Tribune understands that this is the end of the road for the Hon President Bashar al-Assad.
I agree. Things are going from bad to worse for the regime. BUT this talk of change and how long the regimes holds on is merely that: talk. Ideally others should help. But who should that be? If it is a coalition of non Muslim western powers, who have other interests than freedom of Syrians, then people will talk of Jihad against the infidels, as it happened after Iraq and Afghan invasion. If Turkey initiates a front, west will not tolerate it, because west will accuse it of expanding its influence in arab world. It reminds me of monkey dance in the villages. If Russia interferes, west will start a Jihad, as they did against USSR intervention in Afghanistan. So it has to be internal reformation or western cow boy intervention. Sometimes i doubt if objective analysis is possible in this age of wars of self interest. I feel sorry for the ordinary Syrians. As I keep on repeating a weak democracy is better than any benevolent dictators.