Syria, to intervene or not to intervene, a vexing question

[dbroussa]

There are two exremely interesting aspects of the debate over what action the US and the rest of the world should take in regards to Syria's use of NBC weapons against their own citizens.  The first is that, as we saw from 1999 to 2003 the politics of intervention for most politicians is purely a matter of who is in power at the time.  In 1999,

Comments

I agree with some caveats

[dbroussa]

On number (1), the President has not given much in the way of reasons. The International Law around the use of chemical weapons even internally only is pretty clear, but he has just sort of meandered into this without articulating a coherent reason. I disagree that the use of chemical weapons is a cause for war. The use of type I chemical weapons is clearly prohibited by the Geneva Protocol.

On (2) I agree completely...especially with the "this will be limited and will never involve boots on the ground" rhetoric that comes from the White House. The only correct response is to leave all options open. It may be that the situation never escalates to boots on the ground, but I highly doubt it (assuming, of course, that we actually want to achieve the stated goal of punishing the Assad regime and prevent the further use of chemical weapons).

On (3), you are mistaken. Some rebels (the most recent ones) are affiliated with Al Qaeda. They are concentrated around the city of Aleppo and have been fighting not only the Free Syrian Army forces there, but the Syrian Loyalists. In the south around Damascus, the Free Syrian Army is the only force in the field against the Loyalists. The Free Syrian Army is NOT associated with Al Qaeda. It does have some ties to the Muslim Brotherhood (which can be alleged to be similar though not the exact same). The Free Syrian Army has striven to control the Islamic influences in it's midst (not always successfully). It would have been much better to support them early in the conflict when we could have had much more influence on them. But...intervention in a purely civil war is problematic in international law.