I have no doubt that the humanitarian situation in Syria is as bad as the writer describes -- maybe even worse than anyone knows. But why is the writer aiming his plea for intervention almost solely at the US and the West? What about the Arab states in the area? Are any of them stepping up to the plate? If they aren't alarmed enough to act on behalf of their fellow Muslims in Syria, then how on earth can the US justify intervening?

This column, and many like it, make the case for intervention. But I really wonder if it is Possible, with a capital P. There are the hawks in the US that would support it, through various means. But the US leading a force or solely intervening in Syria would more likely mean war than a Libyan-style nudge out the door for the old regime. And Iran would certainly not stand by (Hizb'allah, etc). What would the domino effect of US intervention be on the Iranian situation? Does a Syrian conflict beget an open war with Iran? Trading Iraq and Afghanistan in the '00's for Syria and Iran in the '10's?

I don't see a majority in Congress or the country with the palate for the expenditure of another MENA war, the lives it would inevitably cost and the "distraction" when most everyone is worried about jobs and the financial future of this country. We've been down this road before, and it was called Iraq, not Libya. Egypt required bascially nothing but lip service from the US. Libya was "cheap" and easy by comparison; right place, right time, right opposition. Syria is none of those things, at least now.

This is a political year in the USA. For our Syrian-American friend that is very bad news for he and his compatriots who have chosen to take on the Assad regime. Like FG42 said I don’t doubt the things the writer said about that regime are perhaps even an understatement. But his ‘trust me’ on the quantity and quality of the opposition reminds me of a used car salesman. What else would be possibly say?

Even the most obtuse political strategist could tell ‘Syrian-American’ that there is no appetite in the United States for another war at this time particularly the kind that would be required to topple Assad. When we see Turkey, Jordan, the Saudi’s and others of their ilk move their forces into Syria then by all means give them a hand particularly logistical and from the air. Until them I don’t see how an American President and this also includes Romney in the highly unlikely event he stumbles into the White House starting a second term or a new administration with another war?

But the present situation in Syria looks remarkably like the worst-case scenario described by the Obama administration to justify a no-fly zone in Libya. At the time that concern seemed a bit convenient, as Quaddafi did not seem to have the capability to conduct operations on that level and the anti-government forces were already growing in strength. Compare that to Syria today, where the government is conducting heavy military operations against nearly defenseless cities.

Any argument about why we should or should not intervene is not about relative humanitarian concerns, but about the higher difficulty level of the task, both militarily and diplomatically.

An American, in sum. Given that this individual has chosen to be an American (and who can blame him?), how is it that he wants intervention in Syria, a country in which he appears to otherwise have little interest? Perhaps he would like, say, to travel to Turkey and put himself at the disposition of the rebels without a cause. His help would certainly be greatly appreciated, certainly more than if Syrian refugees , internally displaced or who have crossed an international border, were to read this little piece.

Frankly, it's off-putting to see this (ahem) Syrian-American claiming that the ousting of poor Bashers would somehow deal a Terrible Blow to Iran. That Iran which is credited with practically every act of resistance in Iraq (somehow the Jordanian and Saudi contributions to Al Qaeda In Iraq have taken a back seat) and is now allegedly hurting the 'innocent Syrian people.' It'd seem that the US ought to bomb Syria because it'd really be retaliating against Iran for its general badness. Not only that but Hezbollah and the Pasdaran are thrown into the mix -- apparently there are thousands of them in Syria. You'd wonder, where did all the Syrians go?

Now for the comical Navi Pillay. Or her office. The people who speak of 'snipers' infesting roof-tops. The ones who write alarming reports, citing tge use of 'anti-personnel carriers'. The man of the Arab Spring must surely be the 'sniper.' This magical Baathist Beast has one dominating characteristic -- he can be 'seen' on a roof-top (including, allegedly but improbably, by at least one 'Arab monitor.') Oddly, whenever you see footage of a 'rebel' with a scoped weapon he is generally firing through a rough embrasure, often without poking the barrel out the far side of the wall. But those pesky Baathist snipers they proudly strut about on parade. Thanks a lot, Navi. Now why don't you take 'rebel' guesstimates of dead and wounded and call them facts? What's that, you've already done so? Yup, knew that already. Oh and I almost forgot about the 'activist' who shiveringly informed The World At Large of the 300 tanks 'surrounding' Zabadani. Oh, well...

The writer must be over the moon now that John McCain is howling, 'Bomb, bomb, bomb.' Not Iran. Not yet anyway. Now if he could only convince Benny the Bug to 'do something' humanitarian. Imagine, bombing Arabs in order to save them. The US, he affirms, must lead because Turkey is waiting for some sort of green light. Excellent idea, the Turks can currently bomb the snot out of Iraqi Kurdistan in pursuit of the PKK. It's only natural that the Kurds of Syria want to be bombed for the next decade or three as well -- look, poor old Apo isn't in Damascus any more but how can it be thought that the Turks want US leadership when their own security wishes would likely be sacrificed on the altar of NATO?

The bonafides of the 'rebels' are opaque. Could it be otherwise, given that media attention is rarely directed on what they get up to in 'liberated' areas? But the call for intervention isn't really humanitarian, it's (and how I hate this word) 'strategic.' Dominos, y'know. Leading to Tehran.

I am an Irish American but I don't think US should liberate Northern Ireland.

People bringing their old wars, rivalries, and feuds with them from the "old country" make me tired. This sounds more like a Syrian living in America than an American. See if you can distinguish between America's Interests and Syria's Interests.

Unfortunately, Syria is in the Middle East, and nothing is ever as simple as it may have been up in the Maghreb of N. Africa, like Libya.

We know that Iran and Syria have a formal mutual defense treaty with each other. If Syria were attacked by the U.S., would Iran militarily come to the aid of an allie, which could further escalate the conflict, and cause even more civilian casualties?

Consider that Iran funds and resupplies Hizballah primarily through the Damascus International Airport, using Hizballah as its proxy in Lebanon, as well as against Israel, and by extension of that, may see Syria as an integral part of the their foreign policy in the region. . .an issue I don’t see Iran giving-up on easily if I'm correct?

I would also debate with the commentator that the opposition groups against the Ba’athist regime in Damascus are in fact fragmented, in that the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the National coordination Body for Democratic Change (NCB), don’t see eye-to-eye; the SNC feeling that the NCB are too moderate, to say nothing of the Free Syrian Army, who basically operate on their own against targets of opportunity.

There is another issue of the Arab League: in 1982, the Arab League saw civil unrest in Lebanon, and dispatched a military deterrent mission, albeit, spearhead primarily by the Syrian army. What is the hold-up this time?

Perhaps the member states composing the Arab League understand that if you break it, you own it? I would remind everyone that if this rebellion escalates to a full blown civil war in Syria, and we have no clear and competent group that can take over the government and restore order, someone had better plan on getting a quick footprint on the ground and securing Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles, which unlike Iraq, al-Assad does have.

One wonders, if today Bashers is gone and the baby has been thrown out with the Baath water, would this somehow be beneficial to Israel? That is, wpould those WMD be destroyed with, say, US help, and a peace treaty be signed with Israel and would then all be sweetness and light thereafter? It would be unlikely for Iran to attempt intervention in Syria which is wwhere intervention might have some effect. If it comes to that, does Syria perchance have a treaty with Russia, one that contains Secret Clauses pertaining to Russian intervention?

Libya saw the MANPADS scare, it's not as though Syria doesn't have them too. And they're a great deal closer to the Land of Benny. My guess is that at some time we'll see Ehud warbling on about Syrian WMD being transferred to Hezbollah. That way he can try to do what Amir Peretz and Ehud The Corrupt couldn't. And heym, why not level parts of Gaza at the same time. I mean, that's The Plan if there is an Israeli attack on Iran. Call it pre-emption.

If Zawahiri is merely ‘a feckless general commanding phantom legions’, then it’s time to dial back the burgeoning executive authority that AG Holder defended as recently as yesterday.

1. Why on earth would the US want to get embroiled in another Middle Eastern war?

2. The indirect approach (does this mean arming the rebels?) is subject to the law of unintended consequences. It has come back to bite us in Afghanistan, so I think it would be prudent, especially on the part of elected American officials, to dial back the rhetoric on that score. Let's not arm anyone that we don't have direct supervision of (and even that can lead to problems).

3. Why does the UN Human Rights Commissioner think that appealing to the General Assembly will lead to any action? Most of that body is of the same mind about how to run a country as Assad. They wouldn't want to set a precedent that would lead to their own downfall.

Words that came to mind while reading it included Black Panthers, Symbionese Liberation Army, Waco. And, as well, Olympia Snowe, the US Senator with the prettiest name.

This article isn't what I've been hoping for in the past several weeks, a clear exposition of the views of the government of Syria and the people who have risen up to oppose it in armed combat. Clearly we're being given distorted views of what's going on there, and a lot of those views are designed to get American money and weapons flowing in that direction, together with, if needed, some amount of American blood. As another observer has pointed out, there have been in recent weeks many accounts of individual Syrian army men who have defected, complete with their personal weapons, to help the "Free" Syrians, but little note of what seems the reality: no Syrian army units are defecting.

What's going on in Syria is a display of what has been evident domestically in recent years: it's that when governments see armed threats to public order (i.e., central authority) within their borders, they're entirely prepared to raze those parts of their nation. It's been America's good fortune that in recent years, armed dissidents have been unable to draw on foreign aid in the form of money and weapons to take up their desires for violent rebellion against Washington. It seems clear that some Syrian neighbors have been in recent months more generous to that nation's dissidents.

Syria under al-Assad is the same nation that within the past ten years has been an enlightened and kindly international humanitarian state with peaceful and prosperous Christian and Jewish citizens and an open hand to large numbers of frightened Iraqis fleeing their homeland after the US invasion took the lid off their own violent society. What changed? This Best Defense Syrian-American doesn't seem to know or care. Too much caring outside Syria today seems aimed only at fueling the current combat in ways the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Black Panthers dreamed of and never achieved.

Which brings me to Olympia Snowe, who plans to quit the US Senate at the end of the current term, and last week explained why in a piece for the Washington Post.

Senator Snowe is not a lightweight. She explains, in effect, that time has passed for a person who, like her, sees virtue in initiatives that her party leaders decry as foul, and votes on her principled belief. She believes that this is the sort of person the founding fathers hoped and called for and that current party leaders simply can't stand. Congress, she writes, has already gone to hell in a handcart, and she sees no reason to believe that it will change much in our lifetimes.

I take her point, and in support of it, draw attention to the increasing pattern in the past few years of electing men and women to go to Washington because they pledge, in effect, to bring the national government to its knees. A few newspaper stories in the past 12 months suggest that folks who have put such dissidents on the Federal payroll are discontented because there's still a Federal government. Faced with this disappointment, some now speak of sending even wilder dissidents to Washington in November in place of those current wild fellows who haven't yet figured out how to strangle the Federal government in the family bathtub.

Senator Snowe's is a remarkable piece and a service to the republic. It merits wide readership among those who love the nation. Here's how it goes:
__________________________________
Olympia Snowe: Why I’m leaving the Senate

By Olympia J. Snowe, published March 2

Two truths are all too often overshadowed in today’s political discourse: Public service is a most honorable pursuit, and so is bipartisanship.

I have been immeasurably honored to serve the people of Maine for nearly 40 years in public office and for the past 17 years in the United States Senate. It was incredibly difficult to decide that I would not seek a fourth term in the Senate.

Some people were surprised by my conclusion, yet I have spoken on the floor of the Senate for years about the dysfunction and political polarization in the institution. Simply put, the Senate is not living up to what the Founding Fathers envisioned.

During the Federal Convention of 1787, James Madison wrote in his Notes of Debates that “the use of the Senate is to consist in its proceedings with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom, than the popular branch.” Indeed, the Founding Fathers intended the Senate to serve as an institutional check that ensures all voices are heard and considered, because while our constitutional democracy is premised on majority rule, it is also grounded in a commitment to minority rights.

Yet more than 200 years later, the greatest deliberative body in history is not living up to its billing. The Senate of today routinely jettisons regular order, as evidenced by the body’s failure to pass a budget for more than 1,000 days; serially legislates by political brinkmanship, as demonstrated by the debt-ceiling debacle of August that should have been addressed the previous January; and habitually eschews full debate and an open amendment process in favor of competing, up-or-down, take-it-or-leave-it proposals. We witnessed this again in December with votes on two separate proposals for a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.

As Ronald Brownstein recently observed in National Journal, Congress is becoming more like a parliamentary system — where everyone simply votes with their party and those in charge employ every possible tactic to block the other side. But that is not what America is all about, and it’s not what the Founders intended. In fact, the Senate’s requirement of a supermajority to pass significant legislation encourages its members to work in a bipartisan fashion.

One difficulty in making the Senate work the way it was intended is that America’s electorate is increasingly divided into red and blue states, with lawmakers representing just one color or the other. Before the 1994 election, 34 senators came from states that voted for a presidential nominee of the opposing party. That number has dropped to just 25 senators in 2012. The result is that there is no practical incentive for 75 percent of the senators to work across party lines.

The great challenge is to create a system that gives our elected officials reasons to look past their differences and find common ground if their initial party positions fail to garner sufficient support. In a politically diverse nation, only by finding that common ground can we achieve results for the common good. That is not happening today and, frankly, I do not see it happening in the near future.

For change to occur, our leaders must understand that there is not only strength in compromise, courage in conciliation and honor in consensus-building — but also a political reward for following these tenets. That reward will be real only if the people demonstrate their desire for politicians to come together after the planks in their respective party platforms do not prevail.

I certainly don’t have all the answers, and reversing the corrosive trend of winner-take-all politics will take time. But as I enter a new chapter in my life, I see a critical need to engender public support for the political center, for our democracy to flourish and to find solutions that unite rather than divide us.

I do not believe that, in the near term, the Senate can correct itself from within. It is by nature a political entity and, therefore, there must be a benefit to working across the aisle.

But whenever Americans have set our minds to tackling enormous problems, we have met with tremendous success. And I am convinced that, if the people of our nation raise their collective voices, we can effect a renewal of the art of legislating — and restore the luster of a Senate that still has the potential of achieving monumental solutions to our nation’s most urgent challenges. I look forward to helping the country raise those voices to support the Senate returning to its deserved status and stature — but from outside the institution.

very similar. Similar enough to discourage rather than encourage America to intervene.

Syria also isn't Libya or Egypt. Different culture, economy. But in all of these countries the promise of the so-called Arab Spring has proven false. The technocrats aren't winning. The guys with beards, who the commentator dismisses, appear to be the political beneficiaries of these revolutions. There's a pattern there, the US would be foolish to ignore it.

Are we to believe that a victorious rebel Sunni movement would spurn Saudi "assistance"? Most likely, said rebels would play the US and the Saudis off against each other in a bidding war for influence. We don't need to play that game anymore, we aren't good at it. Foreigners get infrastructure assistance, the M.I.C. gets a new playground; war profiteers, multinationals and the Chinese derive economic benefits, and the American taxpayer gets debt.

I'd disagree with JPWREL and some others, I think the American desire to intervene is still there, look at recent polling about popular support of attacking Iran. But the desire of those Americans who are most pro-war: Southerners, some Midwesterners, older white males, GOPers, and mainstream conservative Evangelicals is suppressed by fear of losing entitlements. The neocons are still prowar because they aren't too concerned about unfunded medicare or social security, but their blue collar fellow travelers are spooked. Just because we can't buy the biggest toy on the rack doesn't mean we don't want it.

"Some Western commentators have opined that opposition groups on the ground are disorganized and incapable of overthrowing the regime. They are wrong. The capability to take on Assad forces exists and the possibility of a rebel victory is real, but this outcome becomes more realistic in the near future if enabled and supported with material aid."

This is merely an assertion. On what basis does this "Syrian-American" make this claim? He says nothing that indicates he has been on the ground or anywhere near it. Is the "Syrian-American" moniker--whose veracity I am assuming Ricks has established--supposed to confer credibility? Anybody could say what he is saying, and many have. You can go to Josh Landis's Syria Comment website and get various sides of the story from observers who at least give the impression of having been in or around Syria lately. Where's the value added?

Pull your own chestnuts out of the fire, man.

...With all due respect to Hillary Supporters......the Clinton's are clearly not known or associated with honesty or integrity.she was simply there as The First Lady she is a master at Manipulating the public with lies and deceit.

"Is rio orange war always forfait mobile inevitable ?"
MaximB

I have no idea why she was chosen. Who every heard of her before this pick except Alaskians? Yes, he needed a woman but he would have been better with Kay Bailey Hutchinson or someone people know about. Bad choice on his part..

"Is rio orange war always comparateur forfait inevitable ?"
MaximB