After the U.N. veto by Russia and China regarding President Assad stepping down, and with continued indiscriminate violence against civilian targets by the ruling regime, should steps be taken perhaps covertly or openly to arm the free Syrian army with weapons? Perhaps Russian and Chinese made weapons would be more appropriate for the rebels for many reasons. One important one being that most of the rebels are Syrian army defectors and therefore have had training in the use of eastern armaments. Also, it allows nations in Europe and North America to not openly appear to be arming the rebels. Even though it may be obvious it may help if the rebels aren't using Western manufactured arms. Would anyone know the plausibility of this/possible implications?
Should covert actions be taken to arm rebel groups in Syria?
- Thread starter Rimasta
- Start date
I'm not sure we can classify the violence as indiscriminate. The Syrian military seems to be fairly clumsy, but they are trying to suppress the rebellion. I suspect that there is a large amount of collateral damage because of the nature of the conflict, and the state of the Syrian military.
Bad for PR guy. How can you justify interfering in the internal affair of the sovereign state that happen to be in the hate list of Israel. Everyone will think this move was sanction for the benefit of Israel, and that would've only serve to heightened anti-west and anti-Israel mood in ME. Beside, this conflict look's more and more like some ambitious colonel who started a rebellion against Assad government and with the peoples who were trapped in between. This is hardly a popular uprising.
Ananda
The Bunker Group
Why should armed the Syrian rebels ? There's no oil in Syria, this is not Iraq or Libya which both have more economic value to begin with.
Also whose this rebel ?, What's their command structure ?
Whose going to come out from the rebels if they manage to overthrow current regime ?
I believe in Syria, the West will likely let the Arab's Brotherhood aka League solved the problem in Arab's brotherly fashion
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Also whose this rebel ?, What's their command structure ?
Whose going to come out from the rebels if they manage to overthrow current regime ?
I believe in Syria, the West will likely let the Arab's Brotherhood aka League solved the problem in Arab's brotherly fashion
.Actually, no. Israel has been very silent so far with the situation in Syria, like they were silent over Egypt and Tunisia. As long as things don't spill over the border and effect Israel's security, and as long as they don't effect things in Lebanon, the Israelis are quite contend with Assad staying in power. If the Baath party were to fall, a new democratic Syrian government might apply more pressure for the return of the Golan and might press other countries for a solution to the Palestinian issue. As it stands, the Israelis are quite happy to have more time, not to negotiate over the Golan and not to make concessions.
It's a paradox. Whilst the Israelis are happy too see Assad weak, as this would have negative effects on Iran and Hezbollah, they would rather Assad stay in power and deal with the devil they know and understand. Bear in mind, that Syria, along with Iran, are the only 2 countries that continue to resist U.S. attempts to have complaint countries in the region or to
''behave''.
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platinum786
New Member
I personally think the local Muslim nations should be asked to step up to the plate. It's not like Turkey, Eygpt, KSA, Qatar etc, don't have the military hardware, or economic funds to take on the Syrian army. What's happening in Syria needs to stop, but there is a certain unfortunate hypocrisy in the Muslim world, when the West gets involved, there is a cry over agendas and contracts etc. Rightfully so, it's not like anyone gets involved out of the goodness of their own heart, BUT, you can't have your cake and eat it. The arab league/Muslim world in general cannot want Assad to be stopped, but then not want those who stop him to use their links, position to gain advantage from the new "free" Syria. If you want both, do it yourself.
Like they did over Libya? Despite all the tough talk by the Arabs, only Qatar participated, with the bulk of the ''dirty'' work being done by Uncle Sam and NATO. What good was all the billions spent on defence by Saudi and the rest of the oil rich Gulf Arab states? As the most influential Arab country, Saudi should have led the way and got involved in Libya.
The key problem here as I see it is despite all this talk about human rights and concerns for the killing of innocents, the bulk of Arab countries are not democratic,were not even elected to power, and if faced with a similar popular uprising will also resort to force. If Assad falls, the Sunni Arabs would be happy, not because ''innocent'' civilians won't be killed anymore, but because Iran in turn would be weakened and even more isolated. As for the West - who was apparently so concerned about the plight of ordinary Libyans, and now Syrians - if things get worse in Saudi or Bahrain, and Shiites start being killed on the streets in large numbers, what will their reaction be?
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