Syria: International Response Part 2

The press has been paying the most attention to American, British, and German reactions to the situation in Syria. Conspicuously absent is the mention of Arab leaders' responses--possibly because the Arab leaders are absenting themselves. This al-Jazeera article (Arabic; can't find an English equivalent yet) contains the first mention I have seen of any response from Arab leaders. The article reports that the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, has criticized the "extremely dangerous" situation in Syria and called for Arab nations to arrive at a unified stance on it. He indicated that "intensive" talks are going on among Arab leaders behind the scenes, and acknowledged that the Arab League is receiving criticism for its silence on the crisis thus far. Elsewhere in the article, there are reports of protests outside the Syrian embassy in Algeria--an indication that Arabs outside Syria are getting restless with the lack of response.

I felt pretty bad about my lack of constructive suggestions for an effective international response to the violence in Syria in yesterday's post. Reading this article (al-Jazeera English) got me thinking again. What could get the Syrian army and security forces to quit firing on civilians and stand with the Syrian people? Is it too late for them to lay off the regime's Kool-aid about "armed insurgents" and gangs of terrorists? I want to believe that there's no way anyone could keep mowing down unarmed civilians and telling themselves they were "terrorist armed groups coming from outside Syria" and deserved to die. But as we all know, people have a seemingly limitless capacity for evil. We may just have to wait and see if these defections snowball into something more significant. In the mean time, I'll be trying to think of ways to get soldiers to give up soldiering.

One other thing to keep an eye on (as if there aren't enough already): the Syrian border with Turkey. Thousands of refugees have poured over the border and thousands more stand poised to do so if they need to. So far Turkey has accepted this influx. But if the trickle becomes a flood and international aid doesn't help meet the refugees' needs, there could be problems--food, water, medical care, and shelter shortages, friction between refugees and Turks, etc.--that might, in a worst-case scenario, lead to closure of the border, trapping Syrians in the army's path. And that would be a humanitarian disaster on a massive scale.