Friday, April 20, 2012

Obama reconsidering buffer zones for Syrian refugees

Turns out that a strict talking-to didn't fix things.

CNN:

With the Syria deal in jeopardy and questions as to whether Syria will truly cease its military operations, particularly after Syrian troops fired across the border into Turkey, discussions within the Obama administration about creating a Syria-Turkey border "buffer zone" have intensified, State Department officials tell CNN. 
"It would be correct to say this idea is getting another look in the last week or so," one official said about the buffer zone.


Fox says Turkey isn't onboard, but who knows.  This should've been done some time ago, but better late than never.  Havens could allow the development of a Free Syria alternative to Assad, would put increasing pressure on the military to get rid of the leadership that's causing the loss of territorial integrity, and could allow Turkey and the West to filter out some of the jihadist elements that could make things worse.

Now that we've delayed and the opposition has lost most of the territory it controls, I'm less supportive of arming the opposition - it's less clear now whether that could save lives.  Arming some vetted groups in the safe havens though, instead of whatever crazies that Saudi Arabia wants to arm, could be a good idea.

3 comments:

Steve Bloom said...

Imperialism is such fun. And hey, we can enforce it with drones!

Anonymous said...

It's all an excuse for regime change. Obama and the US government doesn't give a flyin' fsck for the Syrian people.

Brian said...

I'm quite okay with hypocrisy myself so long as it leads to better results.