The power of diplomacy and economic sanctions is being tested again by the United States and its European allies.
Thursday President Barack Obama, the European Union, and the leaders of Britain, France and Germany joined to demand that Syrian President Bashar Assad resign. Obama coupled his statement with a freeze of all of Syria’s assets in the U.S. and an embargo on Syrian oil imports.
Earlier Thursday, the Associated Press reported, a high-level U.N. human rights team in Geneva said that Syria’s crackdown may amount to crimes against humanity and should be referred to the International Criminal Court. Human rights groups say Syrian troops have killed more than 1,800 civilians since mid-March in an effort to put down protest movements.
At the same time that the U.S. and its allies are urging Assad to resign in the strongest possible terms, they are assuring Syrians that they have no intention of invading or using military force of any kind to force him from power. Syrians have made it clear that they do not want outside powers to take Assad’s place. They are apparently willing to continue the unequal battle between unarmed civilians and Assad’s troops indefinitely.
Their sticks-and-stones revolution is part of the region-wide popular uprising against the area’s dictators that has toppled Egypt’s Mubarak, has Libya’s Gaddafi on the ropes and greatly weakened other tyrants.
Thus far, the movement’s power to depose has been much greater than its ability to replace those kicked out with governors and governments that can bring freedom and order to those long-abused populations.
This failure brings up a question: If President Assad leaves tomorrow for his mountain villa in Boliva — or wherever his safe house may be — and bloody riots for property and power erupt over Syria, what will the West do then, pray tell?
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
