In our last post, we were obliged to jump ahead a few paces in providing our assessment of Syria's most probable and desired outcome; an eventual political solution through pragmatic negotiations with a steady reduction of violence. With the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee voting 15-3 to authorize arming the Syrian opposition and Senator John McCain literally making an ass out of himself visiting the war torn country in an effort to force the Obama administration's hand, we see the Israeli influenced, U.S. led Western response to the Syrian crisis as counter productive, recklessly backward and outright dangerous.
When calculating the cost of continuing the fight to oust Bashar al-Assad, one must consider the massive loss of lives for the pleasure. The death toll to date has been conservatively estimated at 82,000. Arming the Syrian opposition, assuming there is an opposition that can be trusted, could drag the civil war on for another two-three years. At the current rate of killings and refugees, the world could see the death toll rise above well above 500,000 with millions upon millions more psychologically scared, physically disfigure and some permanently displaced.
In our view, anyone arguing for arming armies of fighters to continue the bloodshed in Syria simply does not have the best interest of the Syrian people in mind. Not only should advocates for enhancing the violence have their motives carefully examined, but their heads as well. Every effort, no matter how slim the possibility for success, should be focused on encouraging, motivating and incentivizing " recognized" opposition parties to agree to a political end to Syria's crisis. If the West has any chance at all of having an impact in quelling the violence, it must convince the splinters factions to at least speak with the same voice.
Once that singular voice has been found, the West has to offer support while remaining in the background. Any detectible actions on the part of Western powers to tilt the outcome of events in Syria will only invite trouble for whatever power base is left standing. Even a tacit Western stamp of approval could lead to more violence and strife.
In our view, the best outcome is to guarantee safe passage of Bashar al-Assad when or if he looses in open and fair elections. Offered any other fate and he'll fight to the death. As mentioned earlier, hundreds of thousands more will perish in the process.
Those who won't tolerate anything less than seeing the dictator hang, has to measure the consequences carefully. Hey,he can only hang once. When you do the math, fighting to the bloody end, hardly seems reasonable. After all, din't someone famous say something like "Vengeance is Mine"? If Bashar al-Assad got "it" coming, he'll get it! Trust us.
Comments
Post a Comment