AMU Intelligence Middle East

Brief Update on the Syrian Crisis

By Kyler Ong

As previously anticipated, Syrian bloodshed has escalated contrary to the hopes of the international community and has plunged the country into a state of civil war. While the option for a peaceful resolution in ending this particular episode of the Arab Spring is looking bleaker than ever, the US has already prepared itself for indirect intervention by discussing plans of providing intelligence to neighboring countries of Syria in case violence spills across the line.

As of recent, it has also been revealed that the U.S. is training and advising Jordanian troops specifically for that scenario. Leaders of the world and observers of this crisis are still choosing to live in a state of denial hoping that Annan’s peace plan will magically work itself. But someone has to drop the bomb: It isn’t going to unless harsher measures (whether in the form of tighter economic sanctions or direct/indirect military intervention) are employed to pressure President Assad to put a halt to the bloodshed. And it is when this has been achieved then only would Annan’s peace plan not sound too far-fetched or ludicrous. In considering the more preferred course of action by world leaders, i.e., tighter economic sanctions, we need to take into account that such sanctions may potentially backfire and end up creating a failed state that run the risk of providing a safe haven for AQAP.

In the long run, to calculate which options will bring the war to a quicker end and with minimum cost is most crucial. When contemplating the option of direct/indirect military intervention, while there exists other ways to authorize an intervention should a situation arise (e.g. Turkey could potentially invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty should violence crosses its border), the best bet would be for the Syrian people themselves to unify and support such an action. For the time being, the notion of a peaceful recourse is unrealistic. Moscow’s stance on its Syrian policy could however change the tide, but it will take more than geopolitics for Putin to sacrifice one of its two strategic allies in the Middle East.

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