By Brian Whitaker
"....
On the other hand, there's little doubt that Russia and the
Assad regime would prefer not to see American airstrikes – so the question is
what price they would be willing to pay in order to avoid them. At present we
don't know, but it might be worth finding out.
The bare minimum would be to prevent any further attacks in
Syria using banned weapons (and I have suggested how that might be achieved in
an
earlier blog post). Putting the regime's chemical stockpile under UN control
would not only prevent its use by the regime – thus avoiding further
international confrontations on that issue – but would also remove the risk of
it falling into rebel hands.
If that idea could be sold to Russia without endless
quibbling, Assad would have to fall in line too or risk losing his key ally, and
we might see some progress. Rejection, however, would close the diplomatic door
and Assad would then face the military consequences."
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