Syria: a civil war (closed)

[Dayuhan]

Peace in our time eh' Neville?

Not likely in my lifetime, but that doesn't mean we need to be in the middle of whatever non-peace is going on.

If we speak of "appeasement", who would you say is being appeased?

There are risks in any course of action. Right now the conflict IS escalating. Foreign fighters are entering the country with political and religious agendas that are only marginally part of the original fight.

Of course they are. They would do so even if some foreign power was there trying to "enforce a separation of the combatants and force a political solution". They would likely move in more aggressively and with greater outside support if they could claim to be fighting to expel the infidel from the land of the faithful. I don't see how foreign intervention would change or alleviate the problem of foreign fighters moving in.

The only question now is, "Do the perception of recent victories in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt along with the pent up rage that exist outside Syria remain contained or do outside agents use them to draw other regional players into the conflict for their own political gain?" If they do manage to bring others in, can those outside agents contain the fight or will the passion of the people take on a life of its own, both inside and outside Syria.

What "perception of recent victories in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt" would that be? I don't think it would be accurate to claim those as Islamist victories, though certainly Islamists will try to exploit them, as will non-Islamists. I also wouldn't assume that Islamists moving into Syria to try to exploit that situation must automatically mean that Islamists will control Syria after Assad falls. Certainly they will try, that doesn't mean they'll succeed.

The passion of the people will of course take on a life of its own. It already has. All I can see outside intervention doing is providing a convenient target and rallying point for the most violent incarnation of those passions.

All very well to suggest that this is appeasement... but again, who's being appeased? And more to the point, what would you want to see done about it? Even more to the point, who would do it? We all seem to agree that US intervention would be a bad idea. The Chinese won't touch it... what payoff could there possibly be for them that would justify the expense, effort, and risk? Maybe Russia, slim outside chance, but wouldn't that just make things worse?

Without a viable intervening party and a realistically viable plan for intervention, talk of intervention is moot from that start. And yes, I'm aware that intervention doesn't have to be military, but realistically any effort to "enforce a separation of the combatants and force a political solution" is going to involve a substantial military commitment.

Sadly, no one really wants this to work. They all have other agendas.

I think plenty of people want to see it work, but wanting something to work and having the will or capacity to make it work are two different things. I'm not sure any outside party ever had the will, or realistically the capacity, to settle this without a major fight. The ability of outside parties to stop people from fighting seems much overrated to me: the whole world can express dismay and demand peace, but the fight will go on unless somebody steps into the snake pit to try and stop it. Usually it goes on even after someone steps in, and whoever steps in is likely to get bit.

Yes, it's ugly. What do you think should be or should have been done about it, and by whom?