Syria's Uncivil Conflict

The triumph of Kofi Annan's truce agreement with Syria has fizzled.  President Bashar al-Assad was completely serious, of course, about his commitment to peace and tranquility in his country.  He could vouch for himself and his benign intentions, and his love for his people and their reciprocal love and dependence upon his good nature.  But he could do nothing about the malignant intentions of the traitors and foreign terrorists who had infiltrated his country.

And it was all he could do to halt their incursions, the bloodbaths they had imposed upon his poor defenceless people - much less the barbaric attacks they mounted upon his military.  In the face of which he had little option but to defend the people of Syria.  And to this end he dispatched the heavy weapons and the tanks and the artillery that he had pledged to withdraw.  He had no other option.

Look here - would a vicious, brutal tyrant intent on preserving his dictatorship care enough about his people to aid in preparing and handing out humanitarian aid to those of his people who have suffered so horribly?

SANA shows Syria's President Assad and wife Asma preparing aid for Homs citizens at al-Fahya stadium in Damascus

The UN observers were welcomed by Damascus.  But the regime was unprepared to permit them to become endangered by the presence of those vile protesters.  Damascus had ceded to Arab League ministers calling on it to allow the UN observers to do what they had been tasked for.  Not their fault that the armed terrorists encouraged by his enemies were making it impossible for the observers to do their job.

UN Secretary-General Ban is reduced once again to twisting his fingers in anguish over the impasse.  And begging President al-Assad to withdraw immediately.  The presence of the few UN observers has emboldened those who are revolting against their government to march again in protest, to hold up signs, and generally provoke anger from the regime. 

Damascus had refused to allow the UN to use helicopters as part of the observer mission.  And balked at allowing UN troops and foreign aircraft into his country.  In fact the mission protocol altogether to have been worked out to the satisfaction of both Damascus and a team of UN peacekeeping officers is now effectively in shreds.  And that quite satisfies Damascus.  The UN not so much.

Tanks, troops and big guns back where they were, once again.  The army firing mortars and machine guns, pounding targets in and around Homs and Idlib.  Qatar and Saudi Arabia are mumbling about arming the Free Syrian Army, but they've been doing that for quite a while.  Other members of the Arab League are not all that invested in interfering, claiming the entire region will become embroiled.

Russia and China are complacent.  The West does not relish the thought of employing something like 50,000 foreign troops to keep the situation from total combustion into civil war.  So, it reverts once again to an utterly uncivil contest.