Conley
04-06-2012, 08:31 AM
Speech after speech on Thursday paid homage to the people of Syria, where the United Nations estimates that 9,000 civilians have been killed. The leaders condemned Mr. Assad’s government as committing humanitarian crimes against its own people.
But analysts said the Arab League had ceded any leadership to the United Nations and dialed back its own ambitions in the wake of a failed mission sending observers to Syria. The Foreign Ministry in Damascus on Thursday repeated its rejection of any decisions at the meeting related to Syria.
Although Saudi Arabia and Qatar — which sent only low-level delegations to the summit meeting — have called for more aggressive action against Mr. Assad, the leaders gathered in Baghdad refused to consider any more muscular options. They declined to call for Mr. Assad to go, and said they had not even considered whether to endorse arming opposition forces. That was partly a reflection of internal divisions among Arab leaders, some of whom continue to resist pressuring Mr. Assad to step down.
“We have already tried to find an Arab solution to this issue, but we didn’t succeed,” Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said at a news conference on Wednesday night. “We have no new initiative to bring except for the issues we’ve already discussed.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/world/middleeast/arab-leaders-gather-for-meeting-in-baghdad.html
This is the other half of the problem. The first half is that we have people, leaders, in this country who want to be policemen of the world. The second half is that we have countries and entire regions where they can't solve their own problems, so they actively ask for outside intervention. Of course, when that intervention comes, it's resented as manipulation and interference.
But analysts said the Arab League had ceded any leadership to the United Nations and dialed back its own ambitions in the wake of a failed mission sending observers to Syria. The Foreign Ministry in Damascus on Thursday repeated its rejection of any decisions at the meeting related to Syria.
Although Saudi Arabia and Qatar — which sent only low-level delegations to the summit meeting — have called for more aggressive action against Mr. Assad, the leaders gathered in Baghdad refused to consider any more muscular options. They declined to call for Mr. Assad to go, and said they had not even considered whether to endorse arming opposition forces. That was partly a reflection of internal divisions among Arab leaders, some of whom continue to resist pressuring Mr. Assad to step down.
“We have already tried to find an Arab solution to this issue, but we didn’t succeed,” Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said at a news conference on Wednesday night. “We have no new initiative to bring except for the issues we’ve already discussed.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/world/middleeast/arab-leaders-gather-for-meeting-in-baghdad.html
This is the other half of the problem. The first half is that we have people, leaders, in this country who want to be policemen of the world. The second half is that we have countries and entire regions where they can't solve their own problems, so they actively ask for outside intervention. Of course, when that intervention comes, it's resented as manipulation and interference.