The calls for “something to be done” about Syria are getting louder in the US and Europe – so loud that they may soon be heeded. The first step, which could come fairly quickly, would be to supply the Syrian opposition with weapons. The second, which is under active consideration, would be to establish a no-fly zone.
About 40,000 people have already died in a conflict that Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, says is reaching “new and appalling levels of brutality”. A few days ago, the Assad regime bombed a hospital in Aleppo, causing many deaths. Yet, before the west helps the rebels with weapons or air strikes, key questions remain to be answered. Above all, would intervention bring the conflict to an end? Or might it simply move the war into a new phase – in which the Americans and Europeans would now be directly involved?
This argument for caution is one that the anti-interventionists have made since the conflict started last year. But it is now gaining a less patient hearing. One senior EU diplomat says: “We have hung back for 18 months now and watched people die. That is long enough.” In the US, one of the most articulate exponents of intervention is Anne-Marie Slaughter who, until last year, was head of policy planning at the state department. She wrote recently that by failing to intervene, the US is “betraying yet again what America claims to stand for” and called for “decisive action to save tens of thousands of Syrian lives and possibly tip the balance of the conflict”.