Setting Aside the Unforgivable?
"Russia is not a fair mediator and is part of the conflict. Russia can become a fair mediator when it orders Assad to leave Syria. When (Russia) wants to support the criminal, it will lose."The fact that cohesion and coordination among the large numbers of Syrian rebel militias is absent is of course deleterious to their cause of unseating Bashar al-Assad and their intention to reform the country into a more equal-representative nation of all its parts. But on the other hand, the very simple fact that there are so many who have gathered themselves in an effort to dislodge the Syrian dictator from power over their lives is also to be considered.
Kamal Labwani, Syrian National Coalition
"Unfortunately, the Syrian National Opposition and individual leaders who consider it a counterproductive ploy are blocking it and refusing to participate. This intransigence and these demands are being asserted by the National Coalition, which claims to be the only representative of the Syrian people, but which doesn't represent even a majority of the opposition groups that are opposing Assad's regime.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
The regime's military machine, on order from its president, has lost any vestige of principled authority. No government can be respected, held in any kind of esteem, or expected to reform itself into a more just administration when it has demonstrated repeatedly that it is prepared to directly bomb its civilian population, blaming them for sheltering the regime's opponents.
The country's military stands responsible for destroying its own civil infrastructure. On order from its president, of course.
The regime is undeniably responsible for a staggering number of civilian deaths. Instead of exercising reason when the original complaints leading to peaceful demonstrations occurred, the regime immediately took children into custody, tortured and then killed them. This was their response as a symbol of good faith, and its belief of the need to offer security to the population.
The divisions between the sects, tribal animosities and the inequality that was rampant with a ruling minority compelling a discriminated-against majority to accept a long-standing situation of demoralized oppression, described a dysfunctional society where its president upheld the fiction of being beloved by all. When it became obvious that dissenters wished him ill, he struck hard and fast.
Russia, acting as the great conciliator, seeks to bring both sides to the bargaining table for peace. The rebels speaking for the majority Sunni Syrians insist on the complete removal from power of the president; unsurprisingly he is considered a mass murderer of his own people, a destroyer of his country, a scorched-earth manipulator, certain that with the support of Iran and Hezbollah guided by Russia he will be restored as Syria's legal tyrant.
It's questionable, with two million external refugees, well over 120,000 Syrians dead, millions of internally displaced, traumatized people, and the urban infrastructure in shambles that the Syria that was once so certain of itself will any longer exist. It seems more likely that it will splinter itself into a region for the Kurds to finally establish their longed-for state, and for the rebel-held areas to be held distinct and sovereign from the Shia strongholds.
The humanitarian crisis that has been forced upon the country by a malicious murderer of a president who will stop at nothing to re-establish his inherited authority shows no sign of abating. That the country has been overrun by a menacing infestation of foreign jihadists bent on transforming Syria into their version of an Islamic caliphate bodes ill for its future.
But Russia is involved because, primarily, it has a burning desire to ensure stability that will continue to guarantee its use of a deep-water port for its MidEast-based naval fleet. So Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich deplores the unreasonable attitude of the opposition "blocking and refusing to participate" in the Russian-organized proposed peace conference in Geneva.
The guarantee that the coalition has demanded for Bashar al-Assad to step down is not on for Russia. Without two sides to debate the issue the United States and Russia can listen carefully to one hand clapping its enthusiastic support of itself.
Labels: Conflict, Crisis Politics, Iran, Russia, Syria, United States
posted by Pieface @ Monday, November 11, 2013
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