On November 5th, Lakhdar Brahimi of the UN delayed a peace agreement to the
war in Syria despite external jurisdiction's strong belief that negotiations are the final resolution to the aggression. Due to this delay, Western politicians face a certain dilemma. They have three essential goals to thwart the conflict: to form a peace settlement, to bring in Iran to apply authority to Syria, and finally to out Syrian president, Bashar Assad. However, due to Brahimi's statement of delay, such leaders can only enforce two out of the three goals. To explain why, the Economist provides
lessons of circumventing conflicts. In the infancy of the conflict, Western backing may have already achieved the aim of taking down Assad. But such support has failed to go into fruition. Now after years of aggression, leaving thousands dead, nothing can be done. Rebels have been inculcated by Sunni dogma and shown in examples throughout history, civil wars must successfully come to an end in as little as a year, or else they may continue on for many more years to come. The rebels have zero incentive to cease attacks since they believe that yielding will end in their downfall.
This situation increasingly detriments the relief and protection of Syrian civilians.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordination, Valerie Amos, explains that hardly any effort has been made to protect citizens and make schools and hospitals safe again. She presents chilling information to the council that an increase of approximately three million Syrians (from 6.8 to 9.3) desire humanitarian relief. Not enough effort is being made to protect the lives of Syrian civilians.
So, in dire situations for relief such as the conditions in Syria, is it really too late for Western support? What would be your response in Brahimi's announcement to postpone a peace agreement if it is stifling relief efforts?
I believe that it will still be a long time before there is any real change in Syria, especially in terms of re-creating successful infrastructure for civilians (hospitals, schools). I agree that until Assad is gone, there will be no real incentive for rebels agree to any terms that allow for Assad to have any place in the country. I don't necessarily think that it is too late for Western support to help the crisis, but I don't think we will see any major action until peace negotiations are agreed upon.
ReplyDeleteAt this point the only situation that has a chance of success would be a unified rebel resistance against the Assad regime. Only then could a peace agreement be reached that reflected the current situation in the country. Unfortunately this seems unlikely seeing the deep divisions within rebel forces. Also, the demand by almost every rebel force for Assad to resign makes a peace treaty impossible unless the rebels can completely defeat government forces and force Assad to step down. The West should at least put pressure on the Assad regime to make concessions and push for peace within the country. It is difficult to see this happen unless one side in the conflict starts to make significant gains in the war.
ReplyDeleteI think for a situation like Syria it is too late for western intervention. For me, Syria is eerily similar to Lebanon during it's own civil war. In that instance, there were clouded lines between good guys and bad guys and a huge number of players involved. Western intervention led to very negative consequences for everyone involved, I think Syria could likely go the same route given the interests of Iran and Russia.
ReplyDeleteThe crisis in Syria needs to be dealt with as soon as possible; I disagree with Brahmini’s decision to delay the peace agreement and am therefore curious with his decision-making. Relief to all parties engaged in the civil war is both necessary and pressing. Western support can still make an impact on the humanitarian conditions in Syria although it needs to be directly after either the resignation or fleeing of Assad- as the rebel groups are insistent on his coming down from power. Any attempts at peace or negotiation will be futile if Assad is in power because the rebel fighters will persist if that’s the case.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that it is too late for intervention, but it is clearly much past the point where it would have been most effective. At this point any sort of intervention or non-intervention is going to be unpopular, and as a global community the politics of this should take 2nd place to the increasingly large humanitarian issues going on within Syria and the associated refugee camps. I realize that it's not easy to simply separate those issues, but I feel that at this point picking someone to support would be tricky, and quite messy. That being said delaying any action or decision making has some advantages and disadvantages. At this point in the conflict if we do decide to take action, we've and enough time that we better make a very calculated move rather than just intervene for the sake of intervening, in this sense a delay may not be the worst thing we could see. But the more we wait the harder it will be to solve anything, and we will continue this debate along the lines of international politics and continue to distance our reasoning from what Syria and its' people need.
ReplyDeleteI believe it is not too late to send relief efforts to Syria, is it really is the people who are suffering most throughout this entire ordeal. I think it's easy to forget that Syria is in the midst of the worst kind of war, a civil war, in which it's own people are against each other making the death toll incredibly high. While we have become very opposed to any intervention in places dealing with political unrest or war after 9/11 and our involvement in the middle east, I believe it is not too late and not a bad idea, for the west to get involved in the sense of sending some kind of relief to the Syrian people. While I also don't believe this will happen, I'm hopeful that some kind of humanitarian relief will reach the people who need it the most.
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