Germany ready to send 400 troops to Turkey-Syria border
(AFP) – 1 hour ago
BERLIN — The German government said Thursday it had approved participation in a NATO mission to deploy Patriot missiles to help member state Turkey defend its border against Syria and will send up to 400 troops.
The foreign and defence ministries said in a joint statement that the mandate, which is expected to be presented to parliament early next week, would run to January 31, 2014.
They said the move was an "exclusively defensive measure, which as a means of military deterrent prevents the conflict inside Syria spreading to Turkey".
NATO on Tuesday approved Turkey's request for Patriot missiles to defend its border against Syria following a series of blunt warnings to Damascus not to use chemical weapons.
German Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere said they had seen "no intention" by the Syrian government to deploy chemical weapons. "And therefore the deterrent serves to ensure that the capability does not become an intention," he told reporters.
NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance's decision reflected a "steadfast commitment" to preserving the security of its 28 member states.
The alliance said that Germany along with the Netherlands and the United States have agreed to provide the Patriot missile batteries, which would come under the command of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).
"Turkey is currently the most-affected partner in the Syria conflict. It is exposed to a potential threat from Syria," the ministries said.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said that if chemical weapons were to be used in Syria, he had "no doubt" that a new situation would arise at the UN "in which also Russia and China must reassess their position".
Since the start of the Syrian uprising in March 2011, Russia and China have sided with President Bashar al-Assad's regime and have repeatedly obstructed any UN Security Council action against Damascus.
Westerwelle stressed in a joint press conference with De Maiziere that a deployment in Syria was "in no way" linked to the missiles' mandate.
Although the mandate runs until end-January 2014, De Maiziere said their goal was for the operation to end earlier although it was dependent on the situation on the ground.
Turkey is a vocal opponent of the regime in Syria, where monitoring groups say over 41,000 people have been killed in almost 21 months of conflict, while hundreds of thousands have fled to neighbouring countries.
December 6th, 2012, 13:55
American Patriot
Re: Syria
From Syria:
Syria says chemical scare "pretext for intervention"
By Erika Solomon
BEIRUT | Thu Dec 6, 2012 8:50am EST
(Reuters) - Western powers are whipping up fears of a fateful move to the use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war as a "pretext for intervention", President Bashar al-Assad's deputy foreign minister said on Thursday.
He spoke as Germany's cabinet approved stationing Patriot anti-missile batteries on Turkey's border with Syria, a step requiring deployment of NATO troops that Syria fears could permit imposition of a no-fly zone over its territory.
"Syria stresses again, for the tenth, the hundredth time, that if we had such weapons, they would not be used against its people. We would not commit suicide," Faisal Maqdad said.
U.S. President Barack Obama and other NATO leaders have warned that using chemical weapons would cross a red line and have consequences, which they have not specified.
Assad would probably lose vital diplomatic support from Russia and China that has blocked military intervention in the 20-month-old uprising that has claimed more than 40,000 lives.
A senior Russian lawmaker and ally of President Vladimir Putin said Syria's government is incapable of doing its job properly, a sign that Moscow may already be trying to distance itself from Assad.
"We have shared and do share the opinion that the existing government in Syria should carry out its functions. But time has shown that this task is beyond its strength," Vladimir Vasilyev, who heads President Putin's party group in the State Duma lower house, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
Syria's Maqdad said Western reports the Syrian military was preparing chemical weapons for use against rebel forces trying to close in on the capital Damascus were simply "theatre".
"In fact, we fear a conspiracy ... by the United States and some European states, which might have supplied such weapons to terrorist organizations in Syria, in order to claim later that Syria is the one that used these weapons," he said on Lebanon's Al Manar television, the voice of Hezbollah.
"We fear there is a conspiracy to provide a pretext for any subsequent interventions in Syria by these countries that are increasing pressure on Syria."
UNCONTROLLABLE
Exactly what Syria's army has done with suspected chemical weapons to prompt a surge of Western warnings is not clear. Reports citing Western intelligence and defense sources are vague and inconsistent.
The perceived threat may be discussed in Dublin on Thursday when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meet international Syria mediator Lakhdar Brahimi to try to put a U.N. peace process for Syria back on track.
The talks come ahead of a meeting of the Western-backed "Friends of Syria" group in Marrakech next week which is expected to boost support for rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Brahimi wants world powers to issue a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a transitional administration.
In addition to the possible use of chemical bombs by "an increasingly desperate" Assad, Clinton said Washington was concerned about the government losing control of such weapons to extreme Islamist armed groups among the rebel forces.
U.S. officials said Washington was considering blacklisting Jabhat al-Nusra, an influential rebel group accused by other rebels of indiscriminate tactics that has advocated an Islamic state in Syria and is suspected of ties to al Qaeda.
An explosion in front of the Damascus headquarters of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent killed at least one person on Thursday, Syrian state television said.
It blamed "terrorists from al Qaeda" -- a term often employed to refer to rebel forces.
Meanwhile, activists said the army pummeled several eastern suburbs of Damascus, where the rebels are dominant, with artillery and mortar fire. The suburbs have also been cut off from the city's water and electricity for weeks, rebels say, accusing the government of collective punishment.
COLLAPSE
Rebels say they have surrounded an air base 4 km (2-1/2 mikes) from the center of Damascus, a fresh sign the battle is closing in on the Syrian capital.
They also said they were battling soldiers on the road to Damascus International Airport, 20 km (12 miles) out of the capital where several airlines have canceled flights due to security concerns.
Maqdad, in his interview on Thursday, argued that reports of such advances were untrue: "What is sad is that foreign countries believe these repeated rumors."
But residents inside the capital say the sound of shelling on the outskirts has become a constant backdrop and many fear the fight will soon come to Damascus.
The Western military alliance's decision to send U.S., German and Dutch Patriot missile batteries to help defend the Turkish border would bring European and U.S. troops to Syria's frontier for the first time in the civil war.
The actual deployment could take several weeks.
"Some countries now are now supplying Turkey with missiles for which there is no excuse. Syria is not going to attack the Turkish people," Maqdad said.
But a veteran Turkish commentator, Cengiz Candar of the Radikal newspaper, said Ankara fears Syria's 500 short-range ballistic missiles could fall into the wrong hands.
The government is "of the view that Syria was not expected to use them against Turkey, but that there was a risk of these weapons falling into the hands of 'uncontrolled forces' when the regime collapses", he wrote.
December 6th, 2012, 13:56
American Patriot
Re: Syria
From Russia:
US, Russia set for surprise Syria meeting
By BRADLEY KLAPPER, Associated Press
Updated 5:43 a.m., Thursday, December 6, 2012
http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/16/54/37.../3/628x471.jpg Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pauses during a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012. Photo: Kevin Lamarque, Pool / AP
DUBLIN (AP) — The top U.S. and Russian diplomats will hold a surprise meeting Thursday with the United Nations' peace envoy for Syria, signaling fresh hopes of an international breakthrough to end the Arab country's 21-month civil war.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and mediator Lakhdar Brahimi will gather in Dublin on the sidelines of a human rights conference, a senior U.S. official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because she wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter. She provided few details about the unscheduled get-together.
Ahead of the three-way meeting,Clinton and Lavrov met separately Thursday for about 25 minutes. They agreed to hear Brahimi out on a path forward, a senior us official said. The two also discussed issues ranging from Egypt to North Korea, as well as new congressional action aimed at Russian officials accused of complicity in the death of lawyer Sergey Magnitsky.
The former Cold War foes have fought bitterly over how to address Syria's conflict, with Washington harshly criticizing Moscow of shielding its Arab ally. The Russians respond by accusing the U.S. of meddling by demanding the downfall of President Bashar Assad's regime and ultimately seeking an armed intervention such as the one last year against the late Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.
But the gathering of the three key international figures suggests possible compromise in the offing. At the least, it confirms what officials describe as an easing of some of the acrimony that has raged between Moscow and Washington over the future of an ethnically diverse nation whose stability is seen as critical given its geographic position in between powder kegs Iraq, Lebanon and Israel.
The threat of Syria's government using some of its vast stockpiles of chemical weapons is also adding urgency to diplomatic efforts. Western governments have cited the rising danger of such a scenario this week, and officials say Russia, too, shares great concern on this point.
On Thursday, Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad accused the United States and Europe of using the issue of chemical weapons to justify a future military intervention against Syria. He warned that any such intervention would be "catastrophic."
In Ireland's capital, one idea that Brahimi could seek to resuscitate with U.S. and Russian support would be the political agreement strategy both countries agreed on in Geneva in June.
That plan demanded several steps by the Assad regime to de-escalate tensions and end the violence that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011. It would then have required Syria's opposition and the regime to put forward candidates for a transitional government, with each side having the right to veto nominees proposed by the other.
If employed, the strategy would surely mean the end of more than four decades of an Assad family member at Syria's helm. The opposition has demanded Assad's departure and has rejected any talk of him staying in power. Yet it also would grant regime representatives the opportunity to block Sunni extremists and others in the opposition that they reject.
The transition plan never got off the ground this summer, partly because no pressure was applied to see it succeed by a deeply divided international community. Brahimi's predecessor, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who drafted the plan, then resigned his post in frustration.
The United States blamed the collapse on Russia for vetoing a third resolution at the U.N. Security Council that would have applied world sanctions against Assad's government for failing to live by the deal's provisions.
Russia insisted that the Americans unfairly sought Assad's departure as a precondition and worried about opening the door to military action, even as Washington offered to include language in any U.N. resolution that would have expressly forbade outside armed intervention.
Should a plan similar to that one be proposed, the Obama administration is likely to insist anew that it be internationally enforceable — a step Moscow may still be reluctant to commit to.
In any case, the U.S. insists the tide of the war is turning definitively against Assad.
On Wednesday, the administration said several countries in the Middle East and elsewhere have informally offered to grant asylum to Assad and his family if they leave Syria.
The comments came a day after the United States and its 27 NATO allies agreed to send Patriot missiles to Turkey's southern border with Syria. The deployment, expected within weeks, is meant solely as a defensive measure against the cross-border mortar rounds from Syria that have killed five Turks, but still bring the alliance to the brink of involvement in the civil war.
The United States is also preparing to designate Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian rebel group with alleged ties to al-Qaida, as a foreign terrorist organization in a step aimed at blunting the influence of extremists within the Syrian opposition, officials said Wednesday.
Word of the move came as the State Department announced Clinton will travel to the Mideast and North Africa next week for high-level meetings on the situation in Syria and broader counter-terrorism issues. She is likely then to recognize Syria's newly formed opposition coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, according to officials.
The political endorsement is designed to help unite the country against Assad and spur greater nonlethal and humanitarian assistance from the United States to the rebels.
By Matt Vasilogambros
Updated: December 6, 2012 | 8:25 a.m.
December 6, 2012 | 8:24 a.m.
UPI/Eco Clement
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
The Syrian military has loaded sarin nerve gas into aerial bombs that, if given the order by President Bashar al-Assad, could be dropped on civilians, NBC News reports.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Wednesday that if al-Assad found himself in a “desperate” situation, he might use the country’s chemical-weapon stockpile, Reuters reports.
Clinton repeated what the Obama administration has said for the last several days: If Assad uses chemical weapons, the U.S. response would be swift.
Also on Wednesday, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said President Obama is likely to enforce the threat. “I think it would be a mistake, particularly on Bashar Assad's part, to underestimate him,” he said on CBS.
December 6th, 2012, 14:02
American Patriot
Re: Syria
December 6, 2012 Inching toward the precipice: Syria readies chem weapons
Rick Moran
On the heels of my post yesterday on Syria's possible preparations for using chemical weapons on its own people comes word that US intelligence is convinced that Assad is readying a "go" order and that the agents have been mixed and placed into bombs.
U.S. officials told NBC News that as soon as Syrian President Bashar Assad gives the order, the country's military will use chemical weapons against its own people. Tuesday there seemed to be no firm evidence that the Syrians were mixing the "precursor" chemicals for the nerve gas sarin. The chemical weapon could be loaded into bombs that would be dropped from Syrian Air Force fighter-bombers. But on Wednesday, NBC News said, American officials came to believe the bombs had indeed been readied with the lethal agent. The sarin bombs were not yet loaded onto the fighter planes, however, and Assad has not issued the "go" order.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned President Assad once again that he would be crossing "a red line" if he used nerve gas against the country's rebels. But "there's little the outside world can do to stop it," one official told NBC News. Secretary Clinton, in NATO headquarters in Brussels, said the Assad government was "increasingly desperate" and on the verge of collapse. The 21-month civil war has cost 40,000 lives already.
"We believe their fall is inevitable," Clinton said. "It is just a question of how many people have to die before that occurs." Next week Clinton is expected to officially recognize the main opposition movement, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, aides told NBC News, and the secretary will meet with them in Morocco. Britain, France, Turkey, and some Arab leaders have already recognized the opposition. U.S. officials had long believed that the Syrian government was stockpiling the banned chemical weapons before it acknowledged possessing them this summer. NBC News reported in July that U.S. intelligence agencies believed Syria had access to sarin, tabun, a chemical nerve agent, as well as traditional chemical weapons like mustard gas and hydrogen cyanide.
It is impossible to overstate how dangerous the use of chemical weapons by Syria would be. In addition to mass casualties, it is the series of unknowns - the unpredictable responses of various regional actors, as well as the reaction of the west - that makes Assad's decision potentially catastrophic not only for his own people, but for the region and the world. A few frightening unknowns:
1. Israel has indicated that it would swoop into Syria and take control of Assad's WMD stockpile if it appeared they would fall into the wrong hands. The use of chemical weapons would mark the certain end of Assad and the resulting chaos could create conditions for an Israeli incursion. What would be the reaction of Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states to an Israeli thrust into Syria? What about Iran? 2. If Assad is crazy enough to use WMD on his own people, Turkey may figure he's crazy enough to launch against them. The urgency to supply Turkey with Patriot missiles has never been greater, even with the objections by Russia. An attack by Assad on Turkey would trigger an automatic NATO response, placing the western alliance in direct conflict with Putin and the Russians.
3. What form would intervention by the US and NATO take? If the goal would be to unseat Assad, ground troops would almost certainly be necessary. Would Syria's master Russia stand by and allow NATO troops in Syria? 4. The fall of Assad would cause chaos in Syria - chaos that terrorists and jihadist groups already in Syria would take advantage of. How would the west deal with the political ascendancy of extremists in Syria?
Again, it's not the known variables that make this situation so radically dangerous. It is the unfathomable moves and countermoves of others down the line that have the potential to start a regional conflict. Assad is assembling the fuel for his own funeral pyre. If Gotterdamerung is his goal, he has the wherewithal to achieve it.
Patriot Missiles being moved to Turkey. But... won't be there til next MONTH.
December 6th, 2012, 14:13
American Patriot
Re: Syria
From Syria, again denying....
U.S. says Syria readying chemical weapons to use against its own people; Syria denies claim, says U.S. looking for excuse to intervene
U.S. President Barack Obama and other NATO leaders have warned that using chemical weapons would cross a red line and have consequences, which they have not specified.
Thursday, December 6, 2012, 8:58 AM
Western powers are whipping up fears of a fateful move to the use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war as a "pretext for intervention", President Bashar al-Assad's deputy foreign minister said on Thursday.
He spoke as Germany's cabinet approved stationing Patriot anti-missile batteries on Turkey's border with Syria, a step requiring deployment of NATO troops that Syria fears could permit imposition of a no-fly zone over its territory.
"Syria stresses again, for the tenth, the hundredth time, that if we had such weapons, they would not be used against its people. We would not commit suicide," Faisal Maqdad said.
U.S. President Barack Obama and other NATO leaders have warned that using chemical weapons would cross a red line and have consequences, which they have not specified.
Assad would probably lose vital diplomatic support from Russia and China that has blocked military intervention in the 20-month-old uprising that has claimed more than 40,000 lives.
A senior Russian lawmaker and ally of President Vladimir Putin said Syria's government is incapable of doing its job properly, a sign that Moscow may already be trying to distance itself from Assad.
"We have shared and do share the opinion that the existing government in Syria should carry out its functions. But time has shown that this task is beyond its strength," Vladimir Vasilyev, who heads President Putin's party group in the State Duma lower house, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
Syria's Maqdad said Western reports the Syrian military was preparing chemical weapons for use against rebel forces trying to close in on the capital Damascus were simply "theatre".
"In fact, we fear a conspiracy ... by the United States and some European states, which might have supplied such weapons to terrorist organizations in Syria, in order to claim later that Syria is the one that used these weapons," he said on Lebanon's Al Manar television, the voice of Hezbollah.
"We fear there is a conspiracy to provide a pretext for any subsequent interventions in Syria by these countries that are increasing pressure on Syria."
UNCONTROLLABLE
Exactly what Syria's army has done with suspected chemical weapons to prompt a surge of Western warnings is not clear. Reports citing Western intelligence and defense sources are vague and inconsistent.
The perceived threat may be discussed in Dublin on Thursday when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meet international Syria mediator Lakhdar Brahimi to try to put a U.N. peace process for Syria back on track.
The talks come ahead of a meeting of the Western-backed "Friends of Syria" group in Marrakech next week which is expected to boost support for rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Brahimi wants world powers to issue a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a transitional administration.
In addition to the possible use of chemical bombs by "an increasingly desperate" Assad, Clinton said Washington was concerned about the government losing control of such weapons to extreme Islamist armed groups among the rebel forces.
U.S. officials said Washington was considering blacklisting Jabhat al-Nusra, an influential rebel group accused by other rebels of indiscriminate tactics that has advocated an Islamic state in Syria and is suspected of ties to al Qaeda.
An explosion in front of the Damascus headquarters of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent killed at least one person on Thursday, Syrian state television said.
It blamed "terrorists from al Qaeda" -- a term often employed to refer to rebel forces.
Meanwhile, activists said the army pummeled several eastern suburbs of Damascus, where the rebels are dominant, with artillery and mortar fire. The suburbs have also been cut off from the city's water and electricity for weeks, rebels say, accusing the government of collective punishment.
COLLAPSE
Rebels say they have surrounded an air base 4 km (2-1/2 mikes) from the center of Damascus, a fresh sign the battle is closing in on the Syrian capital.
They also said they were battling soldiers on the road to Damascus International Airport, 20 km (12 miles) out of the capital where several airlines have canceled flights due to security concerns.
Maqdad, in his interview on Thursday, argued that reports of such advances were untrue: "What is sad is that foreign countries believe these repeated rumors."
But residents inside the capital say the sound of shelling on the outskirts has become a constant backdrop and many fear the fight will soon come to Damascus.
The Western military alliance's decision to send U.S., German and Dutch Patriot missile batteries to help defend the Turkish border would bring European and U.S. troops to Syria's frontier for the first time in the civil war.
The actual deployment could take several weeks.
"Some countries now are now supplying Turkey with missiles for which there is no excuse. Syria is not going to attack the Turkish people," Maqdad said.
But a veteran Turkish commentator, Cengiz Candar of the Radikal newspaper, said Ankara fears Syria's 500 short-range ballistic missiles could fall into the wrong hands.
The government is "of the view that Syria was not expected to use them against Turkey, but that there was a risk of these weapons falling into the hands of 'uncontrolled forces' when the regime collapses", he wrote.
A wary Iraq weighs its options as Syrian civil war deepens
Fears in Iraq of a spillover of Syria's fighting, or a victory for Sunni Islamists hostile to the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, have Iraq weighing its options.
Members of a Syrian refugee family who fled the violence back home, walk at the Domiz refugee camp in the northern Iraqi of province Dohuk in July.
Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters
As Syria implodes, shock waves from the sectarian conflict are being felt in Baghdad, where a beleaguered Iraqi government is struggling to maintain a hard-won but fragile stability.
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Iraq has said it is trying to play a neutral role in the conflict next door. But escalating violence, involvement by regional players, and the Shiite-led government’s unique fear of a more hostile successor than the Syrian president appears to have made neutrality impossible.
“We think the regime is finished, but we are afraid of what comes next,” says a senior Iraqi official who asked not to be identified.
For now, there are concerns that Iraq is tolerating military support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government.
Baghdad’s sincerity in agreeing to intercept Iranian military shipments to Syria has again come under scrutiny due to limited efforts on its part to inspect Iranian aircraft using Iraqi airspace. Iraq has searched only two Iranian flights since it began the inspections two months ago, according to diplomats and government officials. One of them was returning from Damascus rather than heading there. Think you know the Middle East? Take our geography quiz.
“The biggest concern we have is the facilitation of the Iranian air bridge,” says a Western diplomat. “They know what’s in those flights, we know what’s in those flights, and they’re continuing. The inspection process is a charade.”
The diplomat said Iranian flights to Syria had increased significantly over the past few months at the same time the West was seeing evidence of an increased Iranian intelligence presence in the fighting. He said the flights were believed to include surveillance equipment and technical personnel allowing Syria’s secret police to more effectively find and kill opponents. Arms to Syria
While Iran is believed to be providing support to the Syrian government, countries including Saudi Arabia and Qatar are widely believed to be channeling weapons to opposition forces. Diplomats say Gulf states though have so far refrained from providing strategic weapons such as anti-tank missiles in fear that they could eventually be used against the countries that provided them. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki this week said Iraq did not have the capacity to search every plane but emphasized that his country is committed to not being a transit point for weapons to Syria.
“We will not be a party in the conflict between the Free Syrian Army or the government,” said Mr. Maliki, who spent years in exile in Syria under Saddam Hussein’s rule.
While the Arab uprisings have upended repressive regimes, they have also threatened historical alliances. Russia fears not only losing its main foothold in the Middle East if President Assad falls but it also fears the potential spread of Islamic militancy to the Muslim populations of the former Soviet republics.
The ties to the Muslim Brotherhood of many figures who until recently dominated the Syrian opposition have also fueled fears by the Iraqi government that Assad could be replaced by a hardline Sunni government.
While Syria turned a blind eye to Al Qaeda fighters transiting through their country to launch attacks in Iraq during the sectarian war here before the uprising, the Iraqi and Syrian governments had begun to improve relations.
Iraq, which is a shiite majority, has the Arab world’s only Shiite-led government. Shiite flags commemorating mourning for Imam Hussein drape government buildings including the Oil Ministry and fly from police cars in central Baghdad. But Maliki and many senior officials remain convinced they are surrounded by enemies inside and out who want to see their downfall.
Fear and warnings“We have information that there are regional attempts to destroy the security situation in Kirkuk, Ninevah, and Diyala,” Maliki told a press conference this week. He said a regional security command he had set up for the three northern provinces was aimed not against the Kurds but extremist forces backed by other countries.
He said those militants were aimed at launching attacks and creating "an imagined ‘Free Iraqi Army.’"
The comment was Maliki’s first public reference to a reported group modeled after the Free Syrian Army and linked by Iraqi government officials to former Baathists, including former Iraqi Army officers, and Sunni extremists – many of them with ties to Syria and Jordan.
It’s not clear whether the group is a genuine force or simply a propaganda tool for recruitment purposes. None of its members have claimed responsibility for attacks against government targets.
Some of Iraq’s allies are concerned the country could be too preoccupied with the fear of Syria becoming a Sunni extremist state to keep its options option.
“Our advice to them is to look ahead. We think this regime is finished and if they continue to give it support or allow others to give it support then it will be difficult for them to develop good relations with whatever the successor arrangement is,” says the Western diplomat.
The Iraqi government’s efforts to play a mediating role with Assad failed when it became clear that the Syrian government was intent on continuing its military campaign. Opposition leaders have ignored Baghdad’s advice to hold talks with the Syrian government. Flexibility?
“The Syrian opposition is really illiterate in the art of opposition,” says one senior Kurdish official. “They have this zero sum game – us or them – and in an opposition this is wrong. You have to be flexible. We did it – Saddam was massacring us and led 2 [million], 3 million of our people to flee and our people were talking to him in Baghdad.”
As a sign of Baghdad’s carefully evolving position regarding Syria, government officials have indicated Iraq could support a no-fly zone preventing the Syrian government from launching air strikes against its people. A US, British and French no-fly zone after the Kurdish uprising against Saddam Hussein in the 1990s stopped Iraqi government attacks in the north. Think you know the Middle East? Take our geography quiz.
While Iraqi officials emphasize the country’s humanitarian efforts in sending food and medicine to Syria, those efforts have not extended to allowing in large numbers of Syrian refugees.
Kurdish Syrians crossing the border in the north are given refuge in camps in Kurdish controlled northern Iraq. But hundreds of miles from Baghdad at the main border crossing of al-Qaim, Iraqi forces have closed the border to all but the most desperate of Syrian refugees.
UN officials say only six or seven Syrians a day are being allowed across that border in Western Anbar Province, almost all of them sick or wounded.
More than 1 million Iraqis took refuge in Syria during the sectarian fighting here. While the Iraqi government has said it does not have the capacity to care for the Syrian refugees, it has also made clear it’s main worry is security.
When the Syrian side of the border fell to opposition fighters earlier this year, the Iraqi government immediately sealed its side of the crossing with concrete barriers. A makeshift gate now carefully controls who crosses into Iraq. Every afternoon, Iraqis drop off food and medicine between the two border gates, leaving it for the Syrian side to pick up. Related stories
"DUBLIN — In a potential sign that Russia's support of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may be softening, Moscow's top diplomat will meet jointly Thursday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the United Nations envoy for Syria, a senior State Department official said."
"Whatever the regime's real intentions with regards to its chemical weapons, the next chapter in Syria will be an ugly one, and before it is all over, many people are going to die—from bullets and bombs if not from sarin gas. Thanks to the boy-who-cried-wolf legacy of the Iraq invasion and the W.M.D.-that-weren't, it is not surprising that the alleged Syrian chemical weapons threat has thus far failed to cause panic in international circles. This could prove to be an unfortunate historical lesson, for, as things stand, there is no guarantee that they won't be deployed."
-- "Is Syria's Civil War Entering Its Final Act, Or Poised For A New Phase?" (Time)
"It may yet be premature to suggest that the 22-month civil war that has claimed more than 30,000 lives is near an end. The regime still has an overwhelming advantage in fire-power, analyst Joe Holliday of the Institute for the Study of War told the Washington Post this week, and the limits of rebel arms and organization may mean that their victory remains many months away."
-- " 'It's A Disaster': Life Inside A Syrian Refugee Camp." (NPR's Deborah Amos, on Morning Edition)
December 6th, 2012, 14:37
American Patriot
Re: Syria
I guess we (the US) is considering this as worst case.
The World is watching so why would he use chemical weapons? Well, Saddam did. Assad isn't taking our threats seriously either. (Not sure I would if I were in another country watching what has happened here in this one either).
Personally, I think the guy is doing everything he can to hold out until he can find a safe way to escape. His OWN people will kill him. The Rebels will kill him. he's kind of between a rock and a hard place on this.
December 6th, 2012, 14:46
American Patriot
Re: Syria
Syria conflict: US and Russia hold surprise talks - live updates
Live• Lavrov, Clinton and Brahimi meet in Dublin
• UK seeks to amend arms embargo on Syria to help rebels
• Six dead in clashes between pro and anti-Morsi protesters
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...8fcb3-620.jpeg Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov watches as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives for a group photo at the OSCE conference in Dublin. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/AFP/Getty Images
UK support for Syrian rebels
Britain will next week to amend an arms embargo on Syria to make it easier to help Syrian rebels, Reuters reports.
A Foreign Office official said the increased "practical support" that Britain envisaged would be training and non-lethal equipment. Items such as body armour and night-vision goggles are currently caught up in a European arms embargo aimed at stemming supplies to Assad's forces.
European foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels on Monday.
Last week EU diplomats said they had agreed to reduce the renewal period of a package of sanctions against Syria, including the arms embargo, to three months rather than one year to make it easier to supply the rebels.
"Having successfully amended the EU arms embargo (and sanctions package) by setting a three-month renewal period, we will make fresh arguments in support of amending the arms embargo ahead of the March 2013 deadline in a way that offers sufficient flexibility to increase practical support to the Syrian opposition," Foreign Office Europe minister David Lidington said in a statement.
Western powers have been wary of supplying weapons to Syria's rebels because the political and armed opposition to Assad has been fragmented. Opposition umbrella group the Syrian National Coalition was formed only last month and further unity talks have been fraught.
However, the Foreign Office on Thursday hailed the coalition's appointment of a representative to Britain, Walid Saffour, as a "sign of progress".
The US, Russia and the international envoy on Syria are to hold a surprise meeting on Syria, AP reports.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and mediator Lakhdar Brahimi will gather in Dublin on the sidelines of a human rights conference, a senior US official said.
Ahead of the three-way meeting, Clinton and Lavrov met separately for about 25 minutes. They agreed to hear Brahimi out on a path forward, a senior US official said.
The gathering of the three key international figures suggests possible compromise in the offing. At the least, it confirms what officials describe as an easing of some of the acrimony that has raged between Moscow and Washington.
The threat of Syria's government using some of its vast stockpiles of chemical weapons is also adding urgency to diplomatic efforts.
One idea that Brahimi could seek to resuscitate with US and Russian support would be the political agreement strategy both countries agreed on in Geneva in June.
That plan demanded several steps by the Assad regime to de-escalate tensions and end the violence that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011. It would then have required Syria's opposition and the regime to put forward candidates for a transitional government, with each side having the right to veto nominees proposed by the other.
The US insists the tide of the war is turning definitively against Assad.
On Wednesday, the administration said several countries in the Middle East and elsewhere have informally offered to grant asylum to Assad and his family if they leave Syria.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...8fcb3-460.jpeg Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov watches as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives for a group photo at the OSCE conference in Dublin. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/AFP/Getty Images
Updated
December 6th, 2012, 15:15
American Patriot
Re: Syria
Internet service goes out across Syria
20m ago
Internet service went down Thursday across Syria and international flights were canceled at the Damascus airport when a road near the facility was closed by heavy fighting in the country's civil war.
Activists said President Bashar Assad's regime pulled the plug on the Internet, perhaps in preparation for a major offensive. Cellphone service also went out in Damascus and parts of central Syria, they said. The government blamed rebel fighters for the outages.
With pressure building against the regime on several fronts and government forces on their heels in the battle for the northern commercial hub of Aleppo, rebels have recently begun pushing back into Damascus after largely being driven out of the capital following a July offensive. One Damascus resident reported seeing rebel forces near a suburb of the city previously deemed to be safe from fighting.
The Internet outage, confirmed by two U.S.-based companies that monitor online connectivity, is unprecedented in Syria's 20-month-old uprising against Assad, which activists say has killed more than 40,000 people.
Regime forces suffered a string of tactical defeats in recent weeks, losing air bases and other strategic facilities. The government may be trying to blunt additional rebel offensives by hampering communications.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland condemned what she called the regime's "assault" on Syrians' ability to communicate with each other and express themselves. She said the move spoke to a desperate attempt by Assad to cling to power.
Syrian authorities often cut phone and Internet service in select areas to disrupt rebel communications when regime forces are conducting major operations.
The government sent mixed signals about the Internet outage but denied it was nationwide. The pro-regime TV station Al-Ikhbariya quoted Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi as saying that "terrorists" have targeted Internet cables, interrupting service in several cities.
Separately, state-run TV said the outage was due to a technical failure that affected some provinces, adding that technicians were trying to fix it.
Activists in Syria, reached by satellite telephones unaffected by the outage, confirmed the communications problems.
A young Syrian businessman who lives in an upscale neighborhood of Damascus, which some refer to as part of "the green zone" because it has remained relatively safe, sent a text message to an Associated Press reporter Thursday that said the Internet had been cut in his area and that mobile phone service was cutting out.
He said he was driving Wednesday through the Damascus suburb of Aqraba, near the airport, and saw dozens of rebel fighters for the first time in the area, riding in pickup trucks and motorcycles, and wielding AK-47s.
Their presence so close to the "green zone" may have led to the Internet being cut, said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared government reprisal. He said the military was positioned a few hundred meters away from the rebel fighters and had built large speed bumps to enclose the area.
The opposition said the Internet blackout was an ominous sign that the regime was preparing a major offensive.
"I fear that cutting the Internet may be a prelude to a massacre in Damascus," said Adib Shishakly, a Syrian opposition figure from Cairo, Egypt. "The regime feels it is being choked off by rebels who are closing in on the capital from its suburbs. It's a desperate move; they are trying to sever communications between activists."
Renesys, a U.S.-based network security firm that studies Internet disruption, said in a statement that Syria effectively disappeared from the Internet at 12:26 p.m. local time.
"In the global routing table, all 84 of Syria's IP address blocks have become unreachable, effectively removing the country from the Internet," Renesys said. It added that the main autonomous system responsible for Internet in the country is the Syrian Telecommunications Establishment, and that "all of their customer
http://resources1.news.com.au/images...els-aleppo.jpg
Free Syrian Army fighters scope out an abandoned building during heavy clashes with government forces in Aleppo. Fears are growing that the Assad regime could use chemical weapons. Source: AP
TROOPS waged fierce assaults on rebels around Syria, focusing on the capital's outskirts, amid growing concerns that an increasingly desperate regime might resort to chemical weapons.
Those fears are likely to be raised during talks in Dublin between the top Russian and US diplomats and the international peace envoy, with the UN chief saying Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must face justice if he uses his chemical arsenal.
Assad forces shelled Douma and Zabadani to the northeast of the capital and Daraya and Moadamiyet al-Sham to the southwest, official and activist sources said.
As the army escalated its assault on rebel-held Daraya, the scene in August of the single worst massacre in Syria's 21-month conflict, additional troops were deployed to the town.
"Syrian army units continued today to pursue terrorists loyal to (the radical Islamist) Al-Nusra Front, which is part of al-Qaida, in Daraya," state news agency SANA said. http://resources0.news.com.au/images...end-papers.jpg
Citing an unnamed military source, the agency also said "Daraya will be completely cleansed of terrorists soon," using its standard term for rebels.
An anti-regime activist said that the army is advancing little by little into Daraya, though the rebel Free Syrian Army is fighting hard to keep the troops out of the town.
"The army has been able to enter into around 30 per cent of Daraya in recent days, and there are serious fears about what would happen to the town if the troops do reclaim it," said the man, who identified himself as Abu Kinan.
At the same time, there were clashes in Irbin to the east, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
In the capital itself, security forces swarmed the southern district of Zahra after a car bomb exploded, with the Observatory saying no one was killed.
But state television said "Al-Qaida terrorists exploded a bomb in a car in front of a Red Crescent centre in Damascus, causing one death and major damage."
Damascus province is now a key battlefield, as regime forces battle to retake control of an eight-kilometre belt around the capital, analysts say.
In the embattled northern city of Aleppo, several districts saw clashes, while shells slammed into zones in the southern province of Daraa, the Observatory said.
The Observatory said the fighting had claimed 104 lives across the country, according to a toll compiled from a network of activists, lawyers and doctors.
The Britain-based watchdog has tallied more than 41,000 deaths, most of them civilians, since the uprising erupted in March 2011.
In Dublin, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi amid fears the regime could be preparing to use chemical weapons as it battles the rebels.
Mrs Clinton warned Damascus on Wednesday that this was a clear red line that must not be crossed.
"Our concerns are that an increasingly desperate Assad regime might turn to chemical weapons or might lose control of them to one of the many groups that are now operating within Syria," Mrs Clinton said.
Speaking in Baghdad yesterday, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Assad should be "brought to justice" if his regime uses chemical weapons.
Mr Ban said he had warned that whoever does so "will have to be brought to justice, and it will create serious consequences to those people."
Mrs Clinton also again pressed the Assad regime to make "the decision to participate in a political transition, ending the violence against its own people."
Moscow has been a staunch ally of Assad and along with China has vetoed UN Security Council resolutions aiming to sanction the regime.
Washington has long been calling for Moscow to use its leverage with Assad to try to persuade him to step down, and open the way towards a political transition.
Russian President Vladimir Putin met Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on Monday on a trip focused on resolving sharp differences over the conflict.
Last month, Mr Erdogan said Russia held the key to the Syrian conflict, and that if Moscow took a "positive" stance in the Security Council it could push another key Damascus ally, Iran, to review its policies.
December 6th, 2012, 15:55
Ryan Ruck
Re: Syria
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick Donaldson
Patriot Missiles being moved to Turkey. But... won't be there til next MONTH.
Is anyone else wondering why it would take a month when A) Turkey is a NATO member and B) we already have a major base at Incirlik?
December 6th, 2012, 16:05
American Patriot
Re: Syria
Note the capitalization of the word "MONTH". So, yeah, I was wondering instantly why it will be a "month". I know why it will be a month, they have to move the stuff from somewhere else, they have to get "permission" from one country (where the batteries are already installed to take them out) and then permission from Turkey to land them, deploy and probably train the crews.
Though... in my time we had (as troops) got a phone call (usually it was around 2:30 or 3:00 AM) and we had about an hour to report, with all our gear, full combat/Mopp, shot records, military ID, mil DL, etc etc. I have deployed to an aircraft or a military convoy in as little as 3-4 hours and departed our base to a FOB or some other location.
We took our equipment with us. More than once we loaded stuff on C-130s or C-141s or C-5s and flew to some damned place somewhere and deployed.
The equipment we too was 407L tactical systems (various types of communications vans, telephone vans, radio, weather, radar or RAPCON stuff, mobile air traffic control towers, generators, trucks and much more)
If our old unit could do it in a few hours and be on the ground setting up, there is NO REASON a Patriot Missile battery can't be redeployed from another location in a matter of days and not weeks.
December 6th, 2012, 16:06
American Patriot
Re: Syria
Fighting rages amid chemical weapons fears in Syria
AFP
December 07, 2012 2:28AM
http://resources1.news.com.au/images...els-aleppo.jpg
Free Syrian Army fighters scope out an abandoned building during heavy clashes with government forces in Aleppo. Fears are growing that the Assad regime could use chemical weapons. Source: AP
TROOPS waged fierce assaults on rebels around Syria, focusing on the capital's outskirts, amid growing concerns that an increasingly desperate regime might resort to chemical weapons.
Those fears are likely to be raised during talks in Dublin between the top Russian and US diplomats and the international peace envoy, with the UN chief saying Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must face justice if he uses his chemical arsenal.
Assad forces shelled Douma and Zabadani to the northeast of the capital and Daraya and Moadamiyet al-Sham to the southwest, official and activist sources said.
As the army escalated its assault on rebel-held Daraya, the scene in August of the single worst massacre in Syria's 21-month conflict, additional troops were deployed to the town.
"Syrian army units continued today to pursue terrorists loyal to (the radical Islamist) Al-Nusra Front, which is part of al-Qaida, in Daraya," state news agency SANA said.
Citing an unnamed military source, the agency also said "Daraya will be completely cleansed of terrorists soon," using its standard term for rebels.
An anti-regime activist said that the army is advancing little by little into Daraya, though the rebel Free Syrian Army is fighting hard to keep the troops out of the town.
"The army has been able to enter into around 30 per cent of Daraya in recent days, and there are serious fears about what would happen to the town if the troops do reclaim it," said the man, who identified himself as Abu Kinan.
At the same time, there were clashes in Irbin to the east, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
In the capital itself, security forces swarmed the southern district of Zahra after a car bomb exploded, with the Observatory saying no one was killed.
But state television said "Al-Qaida terrorists exploded a bomb in a car in front of a Red Crescent centre in Damascus, causing one death and major damage."
Damascus province is now a key battlefield, as regime forces battle to retake control of an eight-kilometre belt around the capital, analysts say.
In the embattled northern city of Aleppo, several districts saw clashes, while shells slammed into zones in the southern province of Daraa, the Observatory said.
The Observatory said the fighting had claimed 104 lives across the country, according to a toll compiled from a network of activists, lawyers and doctors.
The Britain-based watchdog has tallied more than 41,000 deaths, most of them civilians, since the uprising erupted in March 2011.
In Dublin, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi amid fears the regime could be preparing to use chemical weapons as it battles the rebels.
Mrs Clinton warned Damascus on Wednesday that this was a clear red line that must not be crossed.
"Our concerns are that an increasingly desperate Assad regime might turn to chemical weapons or might lose control of them to one of the many groups that are now operating within Syria," Mrs Clinton said.
Speaking in Baghdad yesterday, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Assad should be "brought to justice" if his regime uses chemical weapons.
Mr Ban said he had warned that whoever does so "will have to be brought to justice, and it will create serious consequences to those people."
Mrs Clinton also again pressed the Assad regime to make "the decision to participate in a political transition, ending the violence against its own people."
Moscow has been a staunch ally of Assad and along with China has vetoed UN Security Council resolutions aiming to sanction the regime.
Washington has long been calling for Moscow to use its leverage with Assad to try to persuade him to step down, and open the way towards a political transition.
Russian President Vladimir Putin met Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on Monday on a trip focused on resolving sharp differences over the conflict.
Last month, Mr Erdogan said Russia held the key to the Syrian conflict, and that if Moscow took a "positive" stance in the Security Council it could push another key Damascus ally, Iran, to review its policies.
December 6th, 2012, 16:09
American Patriot
Re: Syria
I'm wondering if this "meeting" with Russia today is more of a "Listen, Hillary, tell Barack that Valdamir said... if you guys are so rash as to attack Assad if he uses chemical weapons, well the consequences could be well beyond what you expected."
Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and Harvard Professor Nicholas Burns says that there will be “negative repercussions” if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad uses chemical weapons against his people and that he will lose the civil war.
Burns says, “The Syrian government would have to think long and hard before using those weapons. There’ll be all sorts of negative repercussions from them including the threat of military intervention. And I do think the Russian government will not want to see Syria use chemical weapons or let them out to the control of rebel forces.”
When O’Brien asks if Assad is desperate enough to use weapons on his own people, Burns answers, "It’s really impossible to tell. The Syrian government spokespeople have been saying over the last couple of days under no circumstances will they use them, except for foreign military intervention. But, Assad is desperate. His back is against the wall. He is going to lose in this civil war. The rebels have made extraordinary advances over the last couple of days. So he’s got to be thinking about either exile or perhaps creating an enclave within Syria where his Alawite clan can defend themselves perhaps along the Mediterranean coast.”
Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien airs weekday mornings from 7-9am ET on CNN.
-----
Here's a bit I looked up on this former Ambassador:
Professor Burns served in the United States Government for twenty-seven years. As a career foreign service officer, he was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2005 to 2008; the State Departments third-ranking official when he led negotiations on the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement; a long-term military assistance agreement with Israel; and was the lead U.S. negotiator on Iran's nuclear program. He was U.S. Ambassador to NATO (2001-2005), Ambassador to Greece (1997-2001) and State Department Spokesman (1995-1997). He worked for five years (1990-1995) on the National Security Council at the White House where he was Senior Director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia Affairs and Special Assistant to President Clinton and Director for Soviet Affairs in the Administration of President George H.W. Bush. Burns also served in the American Consulate General in Jerusalem (1985-1987) where he coordinated U.S. economic assistance to the Palestinian people in the West Bank and before that, at the American embassies in Egypt (1983-1985) and Mauritania (1980 as an intern).
Here's some of his papers (just titles, since I was curious about his real opinion of things.....) Selected Publication Citations:
Book Chapters
Burns, R. Nicholas, Yoichi Funabashi, and Wolfgang Ischinger. The New US Administration: Meeting Challenges, Managing Expectations. Seeking Opportunities in Crisis: Trilateral Cooperation in Meeting Global Challenges. Brookings Institution Press: Trilateral Commission, Tokyo Plenary Meeting, 2009, 83-90.
Commentary
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Giving Thanks for the Brighter Future Ahead." Boston Globe, November 22, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Three Crises That Can’t Wait." The Boston Globe, November 8, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Romney’s Shift on Foreign Policy Creates Confusion." The Boston Globe, October 25, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Cuban Missile Crisis Holds Lessons for Presidential Race." The Boston Globe, October 10, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Murders in Libya Point to Need for Wise Leaders in US." Boston Globe, September 13, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "How Romney Can Win the Foreign Policy Debate." Boston Globe, August 30, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Diplomacy is the Best Tool for Iran." Boston Globe, August 16, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Mitt Romney Flunks His Foreign-Policy Tryout." Boston Globe, August 2, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "US Confronts New Perils in the Middle East as Election Looms." Boston Globe, July 19, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "The Return of Russia." Boston Globe, July 5, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "US Makes Asia a Priority." Boston Globe, June 7, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Two Challenges That College Graduates Will Inherit." Boston Globe, May 24, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Anchoring NATO with Leadership." Chicago Tribune, May 21, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Blame China, Not Obama or US, for the Plight of Activist Chen Guangcheng." Christian Science Monitor, May 3, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "The Rise of Turkey as a Superpower." Boston Globe, April 27, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Masters in The Art of Diplomacy." Boston Globe, April 13, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Why Europe Still Matters." Boston Globe, March 30, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Obama Delivers a Clear Message on Iran." Boston Globe, March 15, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Diplomacy Returns to US Arsenal." Boston Globe, March 2, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Dark Days in Mideast Test US Policy." Boston Globe, February 17, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "India’s Strategic Importance to the US." Boston Globe, February 3, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "What to Do About Iran." Boston.com, January 20, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Foreign Policy Credentials of the Republican Presidential Candidates." Boston Globe, January 6, 2012.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Iraq War Damaged US Credibility." Boston Globe, December 21, 2011.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Our Best Foreign Policy President." Boston Globe, December 9, 2011.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Arab Awakening, Act 2." Boston Globe, November 25, 2011.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "America’s New Isolationism." Boston Globe, November 11, 2011.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Victory for US Leadership." Boston Globe, August 23, 2011.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Why Isn't Peace on Anyone's Platform." Boston Globe, December 23, 2011.
Cohen, William S, Nicholas Burns, and George Robertson. "NATO on the Brink." The Hill, July 11, 2011.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "The Gamble In Libya." Boston Globe, March 22, 2011.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Where Do We Go From Here?" Foreign Policy, February 4, 2011.
Armitage, Richard L., and R. Nicholas Burns. "A To-Do List for Obama in India." Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2010.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "The Strength of Obama's Long Game With Iran." The Atlantic, August 19, 2010.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "The Strength of Obama's Long Game With Iran." Atlantic Monthly, August 19, 2010.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Ways Obama can Tend Bonds with India." Boston Globe, November 24, 2009.
Scocroft, Brent, Joseph S. Nye Jr., R. Nicholas Burns, and Strobe Talbott. "US, Russia Must Lead on Arms Control." Politico, October 13, 2009.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Obama's Opportunity in Iran." Boston Globe, October 1, 2009.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Working With Our Friends in Europe." Boston Globe, April 3, 2009.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "The Ascension." National Interest Online, January 6, 2009.
Burns, Nicholas. "We Should Talk to Our Enemies." Newsweek, October 25, 2008.
Edited Volumes
Burns, R. Nicholas, and Jonathon Price, eds. American Interests in South Asia: Building a Grand Strategy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Aspen Institute, 2011.
Burns, Nicholas R., and Jonathan Price, eds. The Global Economic Crisis and Potential Implications for Foreign Policy and National Security. Aspen Institute, 2009.
Public Testimony
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Statement of Nicholas Burns Before the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs." Testimony to the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate, July 30, 2009.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "Statement of Nicholas Burns Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations." Testimony to the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, May 6, 2009.
Research Papers/Reports
Armitage, Richard, R. Nicholas Burns, and Richard Fontaine. "Natural Allies: A Blueprint for the Future of U.S.-India Relations." Center for a New American Security, October 18, 2010.
Burns, R. Nicholas. "The Future of U.S.-India Relations." Presentation for the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, November 2008.
December 6th, 2012, 16:20
American Patriot
Re: Syria
Gulfnews.com:
Foreign intervention critical to end Syria impasse
Unless the rebels get western help before it is too late, extremists will dominate the battlefield — with grave consequences for regional stability
By David Gardner
Published: 00:00 December 7, 2012
The crumbling regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad is desperately trying to secure a perimeter around Damascus to halt further advance by rebels buoyed by a recent string of tactical victories, enabling them to capture loyalist bases and seize some heavy weapons. Politically, a fragmented opposition is closer to cohering behind an embryonic transitional government than at any time since the Syrian uprising began nearly 21 months ago. Is this the endgame for Al Assad?
“The regime is cornered,” judges one top Arab security official. Even officials in Russia, Syria’s most important international ally, have started murmuring that they see no way out for Al Assad. But 40,000 deaths into this bloodbath, with millions of Syrians displaced by the violence, there is still plenty of fighting to come.
How long the conflict continues depends to an extent on what the external actors in this drama now do. The Friends of Syria — the loose international forum arrayed against Al Assad — holds its fourth ministerial meeting in Marrakesh next week. Can it find ways of accelerating the erosion of the regime and bolstering the opposition?
So far, the anti-Al Assad international camp has midwifed a new, more cohesive opposition, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, now recognised as the legitimate leadership of Syria by France, Britain, Turkey and the Gulf states, with more countries, including the US, expected soon to follow.
In addition, after receiving ‘credible intelligence’ that Al Assad’s forces may be preparing the option of using chemical weapons against their opponents, the US and its allies have warned of immediate “consequences” were they actually to do so. Nato, for its part, has agreed to move Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries to the Turkish border.
But there is little sign of intermediate measures — between embracing the National Council and threatening an assault on loyalist forces — that could hasten the implosion of a regime that is offering tantalising glimpses of decomposition.
Alawites in disarray
There are, for example, signs that the cohesion of the Alawites is unravelling. In October, there was a shootout in Qardaha, Al Assad’s ancestral home, between rival Alawite clans. One well-placed source in Latakia, the port city at the foothills of the Alawite mountains, says the trigger was the discovery that one of Al Assad’s cousins, a powerful militia leader, was found to be selling arms to the rebels.
Certainly, the Alawites are paying a heavy price to keep Al Assad in power, however fearful they are of retribution should Syria’s Sunni majority topple them.
The Syrian opposition, in which Sunnis in general and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular dominate, has not done enough to convince the Alawites, and other minorities such as the Christians, the Druze and the Kurds, that their future is assured in a plural Syria without the Assads.
Part of the reason Syria’s minorities are fearful is that they see Islamist forces gaining influence in rebel ranks.
This equation could change were European powers, for example, to start funnelling anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons to selected rebel units, which their intelligence people on the ground should by now have had time to identify. Better armed, the rebels stand a better chance of widening the fissures within the loyalist camp — of splitting the regime rather than defeating it outright.
Unless the rebels get western help before it is too late, moreover, it is the black flags of the extremists that will dominate the battlefield — with consequences not just for Syria but the region.
Friends of Syria apart, the international powers also need a more compact steering group devoted to Syria’s future — and that seeks to include Russia, which is showing signs of exasperation with the Al Assads, and renewed interest in the opposition.
“You need everybody who is part of the problem to be dragged into the solution”, observes one European foreign minister. “Otherwise they’ll be spoilers.”