After months of rebellion in Syria and heavy repression there, the Obama Administration has finally called for the downfall of that country’s dictatorship.Continue reading Finally: Obama Administration Calls for End to Syrian Dictatorship But Reveals Its Own Worldview
That is a welcome event though this announcement carries indications that it has taken too long and is not entirely being done for the right reasons. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began:
“For months, the world has borne witness to the Assad regime’s contempt for its own people. In peaceful demonstrations across the nation, Syrians are demanding their universal human rights. The regime has answered their demands with empty promises and horrific violence, torturing opposition leaders, laying siege to cities, slaughtering thousands of unarmed civilians, including children.”
In other words, the U.S. government has waited a really long time (“for months”) and nobody has done anything (“borne witness”) while the regime has been given every chance by the Obama Administration to offer some meaningless compromises (“empty promises”) in order to preserve an anti-American, terrorist-supporting, aggressive, repressive dictatorship. But it didn’t slaughter enough civilians and children to repress the revolution so now it must go away.
I’m not being cynical here: those are the policy implications of her words.
She continues:
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader
(seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East
(Wiley), and The Truth About Syria
(Palgrave-Macmillan). His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, to be published by Yale University Press in January 2012. You can read more of Barry Rubin's posts at Rubin Reports, and now on his new blog, Rubin Reports, on Pajamas MediaTechnorati Tag: Obama and Syria.
No comments:
Post a Comment