The Syrian Crisis

After 15 months, the United Nations (U.N.) has finally accepted what the rest of the world has known months ago; Syria is in a civil war. U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Herve Ladsous, has become the first senior U.N. official to accept this fact.

Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel are arming and funding the rebels, the Syrian Free Army, while Iran and Russia are arming the Syrian army of President Bashar al-Assad. Tit-for-tat killings and massacres by both sides has been going on for months and a clear sectarian divide (Sunnis on one side, almost all the rest on the other) has been drawn on the ground.

So what the hell took the U.N. so long to accept something so bloody obvious? Their blindness and refusal to accept the obvious is one reason why the ceasefire deal brokered by Kofi Annan failed so miserably. You can’t find a solution if you refused to accept the problem right?

Now that the U.N. is finally willing to accept the facts on the ground, maybe we can now be serious about finding a solution. And no, that does not mean putting another army/coalition of the willing on the ground. Where in the world will you find any country willing to put 80,000-100,000 troops in the middle of a civil war?

Even if you can find a country willing to volunteer, the last thing anyone wants is another Libya where the militias on the winning side are now shooting at each other and elections has to be postponed due to the fighting. A negotiated settlement is the only way to solve the Syrian without more bloodshed.