It’s good to hear the Obama administration may be searching for a Plan B on Syria. One is certainly needed—and urgently. Plan A was the UN-brokered cease fire which, as no less an authority than UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon notes, is not being implemented by the Assad regime. Indeed, there are numerous reports of regime assaults continuing on opposition bastions while the rebels have little equipment with which to defend themselves.
Sens. John McCain and Joe Lieberman just got back from Turkey where they meet with Syrian rebel leaders. “The most stunning, unsettling conclusion I drew from the leaders of the Free Syrian Army was that they have essentially got no help from anyone. They are literally running out of ammunition while Assad’s forces are being resupplied by Iran and Russia,” Lieberman told a reporter afterwards.
That being the case, what a Plan B might be answers itself: simply provide more aid to the Syrian rebels and also help Turkey to set up safe zones inside Syria where refugees can come to escape annihilation. Those options, which could be combined (but don’t have to be) with air strikes on Syrian regime targets, are hardly new, but the case for them is becoming more compelling as it becomes clear there is no real alternative–unless we are simply willing to sit back and watch a close Iranian ally maintain his bloody rule in such a vital state.
We've lost our nerve in dealing with Assad. What are we afraid of? We're on the side of the angels. Neither Russia nor China has any moral grounds to support this monster. nIf they choose to support him anyway in a military conflict, that's their business. We will have the rest of the world on our side. And if Iran wants to get involved, let it. Before doing so, it should note that the easiest way to Iran is through Syria. And we will take that path and take them both out, if that’s what it takes. nYes, there would be loss of life. Yes, it would be costly. And yes, it would disrupt the world economies. The ugliness of war has not changed throughout the centuries. nNonetheless, there is no other way to get rid of these entrenched monsters. When the job is done, we will rebuild — as we had done after WWII. nBut we'd better act while the iron is still hot.
Has "Syria" ever been a nation, or just a confederation of squabbling tribes? God bless.
When does "intervention" end? What is worthy and not worthy? What happens when targets blend in? What about when it becomes a guerrilla warfare? Will you be satisfied if it becomes another Lebanon? n nNo one ever acknowledges potential futures when they say "do something". I haven't seen anyone say they need Congress to approve something. Will Commentary qualify all calls to intervene with the simplest Constitutional requirement of all? Or will this site lose all credibility like Rubio and other Republican members of Congress lost with Libya's unconstitutional war fighting? n nPlan A and Plan B should be identical…nothing. It's the Peoples responsibility to throw off governance, not the world's, or USA, to hand it to them. Should we conquer Africa since bad things happen there?
Part of me thinks that the international community SHOULD intervene and part tells me that we should stay out. I have been unable to reconcile these two conflicting thoughts. n nI here the stories, see the pics of civilians being bombarded by Assad and his military and every cell in my body KNOWS this is wrong but the other part of me wonders exactly where OUR responsibility is to these people. Do we actually have one? Does the international community at large have a responsibility here? n nQuestions come to mind like: Isn't this the exact type of 'conflict' that the U.N. was chartered to address? Is Al_Qaeda involved in Syria? If we in fact do intervene, are we setting up a situation where yet again, we'll see an Islamic group take control? n nOf course, other thoughts come to mind as well: The Syrian military is NO push over. Just ask the Israeli's. They have a large, well equipped, trained army and sophisticated, Russian supplied air defensive systems. This is NOT Libya folks. n nI have no answers on this one that's for sure but I do know this, the U.S. of A can NOT go it alone. This situation WILL take a strong, international response with clear rules of engagement AND even more to the point, a clear, focused vision of what the aftermath will look like. n nAs far as I've seen, we have nether. n