Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad’s troops killed more than 160 Syrians this weekend while “peace envoy” Kofi Annan sipped tea at the presidential palace in Damascus.
As the death toll in the rebellion against the Damascus tyrant inched closer to 10,000, the ever-optimistic Annan failed to convince anyone to end the fighting. Annan sought a compromise, but is that possible when Assad hopes to secure his hold on power while the rebels hope to end it?
Annan was sent to Syria by current UN chief Ban Ki-moon and the Arab League, but he’s also the only game in town for the West. In rejecting Sen. John McCain’s call for military intervention in Syria, Obama administration officials made it clear that Washington won’t use air power, let alone ground troops, and that it won’t arm the rebels. Neither do we have any other plan.
Cue the diplomacy-mongers.
No one’s better at that game than Annan, who in 1998 “averted” a second Gulf War war during President Bill Clinton’s first term . Annan declared on his return from a Baghdad meeting with Saddam that “I can do business with that man.”
(He got a Nobel Peace Prize for his good offices in saving Saddam’s hide.)
Annan has a history of turning a blind eye to genocidal massacres. As chief of United Nations peacekeeping, he ordered UN troops to avoid intervention in horrific bloodbaths in Rwanda in 1994 and Srebrenica, Bosnia, in 1995.
Before leaving Syria yesterday, Annan told reporters that he presented a “concrete plan” to Assad; if Assad agreed, the plan would “help end the crisis on the ground.”
That’s a big “if.” One opposition leader, Mohammad Saeed, told the London Telegraph on Saturday that Annan is “living on Mars.” Assad, meanwhile, dismissed the meat of the proposal, negotiations with the rebels, whom he calls “terrorist groups.”
If ever there was a time for talks between this tyrant and the people who yearn to overthrow him, that moment is long gone.
Last week, Assad’s troops hastily washed the blood off the sidewalks of Homs after razing entire neighborhoods and all but ending the rebellion there. Now they’re launching similar assaults in the north of the country, in a credible bid to crush the year-long uprising.
Annan’s plan calls for a cease-fire first and democracy-creating negotiations later. He has yet to publicly mention the much bolder Arab League blueprint, which has Assad stepping aside and transferring power to a deputy before the democratization process starts.
Because unless Assad leaves the scene, the only way fighting can end is with his victory.
Secretary of State of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (whose nation vetoed the Arab League plan in the UN Security Council) and other top world officials will debate the Arab Spring at Turtle Bay today. But Assad can relax; no one expects any breakthrough on Syria.
Not all is lost, however. Syrian rebels say that more generals in Assad’s army are defecting. And Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are putting together intervention plans. But success is doubtful without US leadership.
President Obama has long said that Assad has “lost legitimacy” as Syria’s leader, and cited a widely held intelligence assessment that Assad eventually will lose. But Obama’s aides explain that we must do nothing, zero, zilch, to help such predictions come true.
Yet America has a strong interest (beyond humanitarian horror) in the Syrian outcome. We need to secure Syria’s chemical and biological arms in the post-Assad era and more. Obama aides predict that after Assad, Iran’s strongest ally, departs, dealing with Tehran would be much easier, helping to untangle our top Mideast crisis.
But if all we do to advance this interest is rely on the Kofi Annans of the world, Assad may yet snatch victory from the jaws of what had been looking like sure defeat.
Twitter: @bennyavni