Will America End Syria’s Humanitarian Nightmare?

Former U.S. Ambassador to Thailand and Turkey Morton Abramowitz argues that

“If more Syrians are to be saved we will have to again consider a difficult course of action the administration has always rejected and is not politically popular, using force to insure the delivery of goods to Syrians in desperate circumstances on a continuing basis. If we want to significantly improve the humanitarian equation in any short term time frame this course will be essential. Such a response also offers perhaps another way to enhance the possibility of a political settlement. Whether it will all be seen that way here is another matter.”

Ambassador Abramowitz is right indeed. Humanitarian conditions in Syria are changing from bad to worse on a continuous basis, there is no more room for any further delays if we are to avoid catastrophe.

Syria’s Assad accused of boosting Al-Qaeda with secret oil deals

Syria’s Assad accused of boosting Al-Qaeda with secret oil deals – Telegraph.

Finally, Western intelligence agencies are beginning to publicly admit and confirm what activists on the ground have been saying for months now, namely that Assad and Al-Qaeda are collaborating against rebel groups. So, Assad says one thing, does another. Surprise, surprise.

Syria’s Assad expects to run again, rejects power deal

AFP: Syria’s Assad expects to run again, rejects power deal.

By now such statements come as nothing more than a show of petulant defiance by a toy-boy holed up in a bunker somewhere watching the end of a dynasty project that should never have been launched. Whether he pays for his and his father’s crimes now, or ten years from now, who really cares? Nothing can ever change the fact of how petty, malevolent and spiteful the Assads’ venture into the world has been. This terse footnote to a dark and convoluted history ends now.

Syrian Crisis Threatens Development in Arab World

Syrian Crisis Threatens Development in Arab World – Inter Press Service.

In some countries, autocratic rule did not come as an impediment to development but as a facilitator thereof, but in Arab-majority countries, among others, communal identities were too entrenched and have severely constrained the ability and willingness of the ruling regimes to develop their countries. In Syria, the Assads have ruled the country as a conquered enemy territory, and try as they did, and they did try, they could not assimilate and reflect in their collective behavior the ideals of unity, integration and justice that they assiduously preached. Their schizophrenic behavior reflected the artificial nature of the state they controlled and served to feed and amplify the identity crisis from which each Syrian community and each Syrian citizen suffer. The result is this devastation, and its regional and global ramifications.