{"id":187194,"date":"2013-05-19T19:54:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T00:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/05\/19\/yet-another-reason-not-to-be-involved-in-syria\/"},"modified":"2013-05-19T19:54:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T00:54:00","slug":"yet-another-reason-not-to-be-involved-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/05\/19\/yet-another-reason-not-to-be-involved-in-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"Yet Another Reason Not to Be Involved in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

In addition to the fact that the difference between the good guys and the bad guys is that the bad guys are the ones not<\/b> literally eating human hearts<\/a>, it now seems that just as the “Very Serious People” are demanding that we take down the Assad regime, the rest of the world is getting cold feet about the whole thing<\/a>:<\/p>\n

There is a change in the global political position towards Syria. Here are three recent indicators. Via FLC<\/a> we learn<\/a> of a significant position change in Tunisia: <\/span><\/p>\n

Tunisia wants to reopen its embassy in Syria which has been closed for more than two years and has sent a request in this vein to the government in Damascus. Tunis is yet to receive a reply from Syria\u2019s foreign ministry and a diplomatic source said that the letter has been sent to the foreign ministry since \u201clast week.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> …<\/span>

<\/span> Tunisia quickly closed its embassy when the uprising against the Assad regime began in 2011. It will become the first country to reopen its diplomatic office in Syria if its request receives a positive response from the foreign ministry.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tunisia is especially significant as it is part of the Arab League and its government is led by the Ennahda party which is ideological affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Tunisia is threatened by the Ansar al-Sharia Salafist movement, some of who’s supporters are fighting on the Syrian insurgency side, and the Ennahda government recently moved<\/a> against that group. <\/span>

<\/span> Another sign that the international wind is changing was last weeks United Nation General Assembly vote on a nonbinding Qatari resolution against Syria. The resolution itself had to be rewritten some six times and while it gained the vote of 107 states a similar resolution last year was favored by 130 states. <\/span>

<\/span> A third sign is the seemingly changing position in Israel where a political mood is turning<\/a> towards keeping the Syrian president Bashar Assad in power:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBetter the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if Syria falls into chaos and the extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there,\u201d one senior Israeli intelligence officer was quoted as saying. A weakened, but intact Assad regime would be preferable for Syria and the Middle East, the Times reported intelligence sources as saying.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That view will likely later be reflected in Washington where the “Assad must go” crowd has yet to weaken its position. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is what happens when you let your foreign policy be driven by the Gulf kingdoms desire to eliminate secular Arab regimes.<\/p>\n

If the House of Saud and its ilk had the slightest desire to help the people of Syria (they don’t), there would be any number of ways for them to handle it without Islamicizing (Sunni-izing really) the conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In addition to the fact that the difference between the good guys and the bad guys is that the bad guys are the ones not literally eating human hearts, it now seems that just as the “Very Serious People” are demanding that we take down the Assad regime, the rest of the world is getting …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[981,986],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-war","category-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}