The war in Syria is illegal. If a criminal had poisoned someone, our concern would be how to protect the public from future poisonings and how to arrest the criminal and bring him (or her) before a court of law. And civil society needs to be directly involved in the talks.
The political balance in the west is moving against military involvement in Syria. Such a choice will ensure the prolongation of war, chaos, extremism, and humanitarian disaster. Only intervention will open the way to a political settlement, says Bashar Haydar.
Rapid, punitive airstrikes two and a half weeks ago, while certainly displacing some Syrians, would have been less likely to lead to larger numbers of refugees.
As the world holds its collective breath in anticipation of western military intervention, the children of Zamalka have already lost everything and the prospect of an international response means nothing to them.
Who will be there to teach us about morality, and to speak of yet another moral intervention when pictures of brutality show up on our screens, this time committed by the coalition of the “morally righteous”?
The world’s failure to respond effectively to ongoing atrocities in Syria may mean Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is down, but it’s not out. R2P still offers a principled approach to react to a chemical weapons atrocity in the face of likely Security Council vetoes. A contribution to the openGlob
Failure to consider the potency of sectarian identities in Syria may produce the opposite effect intended for a strike, pushing parties further away from negotiations, and closer to the brink.
The only way to start a war against another country without UNSC authorization is in self-defense. The President needs to make the case that the Syrian government is an imminent threat to United States’ national security. He needs to make that case to the American public and Congress.
Does the West have any moral right to interfere with the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons when they facilitated the manufacture of them?
The United States's military preparations, and Israel's growing involvement, reveal the momentum to a dangerous escalation in the middle east.
Since July 2012, the death toll in Syria exploded from 19,000 deaths to over 100,000 casualties. These deaths are arguably the result of the rapid militarisation of the Syrian conflict, following the decision by western powers to arm the opposition.
Neither ending the bloodshed nor preventing the further use of weapons of mass destruction in Syria is served by military intervention. Amidst speculation over the US-UK special relationship, the Iranian reaction points a way forward.
