The Great Indecision
Published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(Germany) on 24 August 2013
by Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger (link to
original)
It is only human to demand that someone should do something about the killing in Syria. But who?
A terrible war is raging in Syria, which is creating millions of refugees. If the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, it would be a crime against humanity. And so it is only human to demand that someone must do something against this killing, namely by intervening. But who?
The United States is tired of interventions, and its indecisive president has drawn an elastic “red line.” The Europeans? That is hard to imagine, even given the threat of a reaction with force from France's excited foreign minister. In the spring, Paris and London still wanted to supply the rebels with weapons, but not much remains of this enthusiasm.
We can complain about the division in the U.N. Security Council and the protection that Moscow grants to Assad, but that's how it is. If an outside power were to directly intervene then it would probably be America, if it sees its interests threatened by events in Syria, in particular by the use of weapons of mass destruction. After all, the country once considered itself indispensable on the global political stage.
A terrible war is raging in Syria, which is creating millions of refugees. If the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, it would be a crime against humanity. And so it is only human to demand that someone must do something against this killing, namely by intervening. But who?
The United States is tired of interventions, and its indecisive president has drawn an elastic “red line.” The Europeans? That is hard to imagine, even given the threat of a reaction with force from France's excited foreign minister. In the spring, Paris and London still wanted to supply the rebels with weapons, but not much remains of this enthusiasm.
We can complain about the division in the U.N. Security Council and the protection that Moscow grants to Assad, but that's how it is. If an outside power were to directly intervene then it would probably be America, if it sees its interests threatened by events in Syria, in particular by the use of weapons of mass destruction. After all, the country once considered itself indispensable on the global political stage.
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