United Nations Special Envoy Kofi Annan has quit his diplomatic mission to Syria in the midst of the increasingly desperate civil war between rebels and forces loyal to Bashir-al Assad.
Does this mean that diplomacy is dead?
Kofi Annan for all his faults is a highly skilled and capable diplomat, but the situation in Syria has moved beyond diplomacy at present.
Assad is a dictator clinging to power battling an insurgency that knows laying down their weapons isn’t a option.
Though all civil wars eventually end with some sort of diplomatic settlement, I believe the international community may have to wait for the violence to cease before diplomacy can take hold.
The cost of this approach is thousands more lives, so its unpalatable to the international community, but this isn’t a video game either. There isn’t a reset button…the status quo in Syria is broken beyond repair.
To say diplomacy is hopeless is wrong, but there’s a time for diplomacy and a time for war…
Right now, the war is on.
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