Thursday, November 24, 2011

An excellent analysis of the Syrian situation by the International Crisis Group. One thing I said when the regime agree to attend the first Arab League meeting about Syria has turned out to be true. Coming so soon after the Russian and Chinese veto at the UN Security Council, I argued that the regime was pressured to begin negotiations in order to sort out this mess. They wasted this life line and now both Russia and China seem to be slowly distancing themselves from the regime. The Crisis Group report confirms this initial suspicion I had, and it also goes a bit further and accuses the regime directly of exacerbating the sectarian tensions in the country. This is far more blunt than I've read from international organisations before; usually the regime is given the benefit of the doubt. It's a good - and light - read, and well worth taking a look at.

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