Friday, January 13, 2012

Futility of a League: Arab Action against Assad

With observers on the ground in Syrian cities, the Arab League conceded at the beginning of 2012 that the monitors had “failed to halt the lethal violence” in Syria.[1] Nabil Al Arabi, the organization’s chair, acknowledged that snipers persisted in major cities, but that the allegiance of the shooters had not been ascertained. Such cautiousness was itself likely a contributor to what the Journal refers to as “pitfalls of the organization’s self-reinvention as a regional diplomatic playmaker.”[2] Criticism had been mounting that the “monitoring mission has done little to resolve a conflict that the United Nations [estimated at the time had] taken more than 5,000 mostly civilian lives. Perhaps this might be an indication of the snipers’ allegiance.


The full essay is at "Futility of a League." 


1.  Matt Bradley and Nour Malas, “Arab World Diplomacy Fails to Stop Syria Clash,” The Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2011. 
2. Ibid.