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Originally Posted by Vanilla
I see. All I know is this has been going on for over a year and something has to change. Do the rebels have what it takes to get the president killed?
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They do imo, its just a case of how the army will continue to support the Assad regime. There was a similiar situation with Ceausescu in Romania in the late 1980s and much more recently with Gaddafi, the two things they have in common here is that both dictatorships gradually lost the support of large segments of their armed forces. For this reason alone, I would've thought that Assad would have learnt that political concessions are the best way to ensure his survival.
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Originally Posted by William_the_Bloody
The sad truth is that Bashar Al-Assad will most likely hold onto power, he has too many strong geo political allies, both Russia, China & Iran are backing the regime, which is why you haven't seen any NATO intervention like you did in Lybia.
The first thing the Russians did when the crisis unfolded was send battle cruisers into Syrian waters to send a strong message to the west. China & Russia have also been vetoing UN Security Council Resolutions that would allow for any punative action against Syria. Finally Iran has been supplying the Syrian government with aid & arms, and strategic military advise.
The west is indebted & broke, and there is no will amongst the American people to endure another Iraq. Bashar Al-Assad will win the day.
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I agree with a lot of your points, but I think his hold on power is far less secure than you believe, as I said above, it depends on which way the army swings. They either remain loyal to the regime or go with the calling of the people, the romance of the second option is a strong magnet.
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Originally Posted by Whiskey
If they had what it takes to kill him, dont you think they would already do so long ago?
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Not really, these things don't happen overnight. Just think of it as having intercourse.......the climax could come at any time or it might never come!
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Originally Posted by TheBig3
Well who is going to jump in? And for what reason should they?
You and I both know anyone on the political left will scream bloody murder about "warmongering" if one civilian is killed.
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When anybody jumps in, it's normally for economic reasons under the guise of saving human lives or securing the stability of the zone to prevent the unrest spreading further. The problem that we have here is threefold. Firstly, the European powers won't go into somewhere like Syria without US leadership, it's too big a deal. Secondly, Syria comes under Russia's zone of influence, so the best we're going to get are the UN. Thirdly, the 'Arab Spring' has really run its course and is possibly now in its later stages, so there's no real hope of preventing regional unrest, the river has already broken its banks.
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This coupled with the US's militaristic overreach and no one in the region asking for our help, we're not going in. So who's military is going to do the job?
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Isreal would love to, but I think Turkey would be the military power most capable of achieving its goal, but this would prove to be a calamity as far as the region goes, as Turkey is pretty much hated by most of its neighbours. For these reasons Syria's problem will need to be sorted out internally, which means more massacres and eventually a bloody end for Assad!
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France and Britain jumped on the Mali situation and people started murmurs of being dragged into another long-war.
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France are there under the request of the Mali government and Britain in some kind of pro-European brotherly love are there now to support them. This is strange considering the anti-EU stance in the British papers at the moment, but I guess it's also a subtle message to Argentina over the Falklands rift, that Britain will defend territories a long way from home and not shirk from obligations.
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Furthermore, I'm not up on the specific policies of Hollande, but as a Socialist I assume he's anti-war, pro world-worker.
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Sure he's anti-war but I guess he believes some eggs need to be broken to achieve a better world.