Rebels Say West’s Inaction Is Pushing Syrians to Extremism

[pampango]

Majed al-Muhammad, center, a rebel commander, said if the West continued to turn its
back on Syria’s suffering, Syrians would turn their backs in return.

Majed al-Muhammad, the commander of a Syrian antigovernment fighting group, slammed his hand on his desk. “Doesn’t America have satellites?” he asked, almost shouting. “Can’t it see what is happening?” A retired Syrian Army medic, Mr. Muhammad had reached the rank of sergeant major in the military he now fights against. He said he had never been a member of a party, and loathed jihadists and terrorists.

“We are now at a very critical juncture,” wrote Melih Asik in the Turkish newspaper Milliyet. “We are not only facing Syria, but Iran, Iraq, Russia and China behind it as well. Behind us, we have nothing but the provocative stance and empty promises of the U.S.”

The origins of these sentiments are typically the same: a widely held view that Washington and European capitals are more interested in maintaining the flow of oil from Libya and Iraq, or in protecting Israel, than in Syria and its people’s suffering. The view is supported, Syrians opposed to Mr. Assad say, by the West’s stubborn refusal to provide weapons to the rebels, or to protect civilians and aid the rebels with a no-fly zone.

Other men echoed this sentiment, and accused the United States and Europe of playing a double game, in effect of conspiring with the Kremlin to ensure that no nation has to act against the Assad government or on the rebels’ or civilians’ behalf.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/world/middleeast/rebels-say-wests-inaction-is-radicalizing-syria.html

If I were rebelling against an American dictator, I suppose I would be frustrated too, if the rest of the world either supported the dictator or supplied me with just 'empty promises'.

From afar it is easy to rationalize the wisdom of not intervening. I think Obama is right to insist that any action in Syria be a concerted UN-approved action, which means it is very unlikely to happen. From the inside, that legalistic logic is probably a lot less persuasive.

As Juan Cole wrote several months ago, the Syrian revolution may be similar to those in Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1956 and 1968 respectively. The repression of a revolution by massive military intervention may be deplorable but sometimes there is nothing the rest of the world can do about it at the time. One can only hope that in the long run the people emerge victorious which proved to be the case in those examples.

Still if Assad's government does eventually fall (which seems less and less likely with an unending supply of tanks and planes and the willingness to use them everywhere), the new government certainly won't find any 'friends' in Russia, China, Iran or Iraq.

[leveymg]

1. The "revolution" has reached a dead end, and they will probably turn on us.

Blowback, big time. 15,000 MANPADS still missing in Libya, and more of the them showing up in Syria.

How many 9/11s before Americans understand it isn't smart to try to use fanatics and terrorists for out own ends?

[Arctic Dave]

2. Maybe they should have thought this through a little more before listening to Turkey,

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the rest of their "friends" that said they would help.

They were duped to be a proxy war for Iran and now they are being hung out to dry by people who never gave a shit about their "freedom".

[ronnie624]

3. The current state of affairs in this region of the world

can be directly traced to self-serving policies of imperialism and intervention by Western powers. The last thing the world needs is more of the same.