Syrian's Situation

As we know from yesterday's news, a suicide bomber killed the Syrian Defense Minister and his Deputy (the Deputy being a brother-in-law of the Syrian President, Bashar al Assad).  Night Watch says:

Barring outside help for the Damascus government, the end game has begun, signified primarily by the inability of the center of government to protect itself. Outside support from Iran and Russia might help stabilize the situation.  In the final analysis, the Syrian fight is a proxy war between Saudi Arabia with the US supporting the Saudis, and Iran with the Russians working with the Iranians.  Iran might yet provide more help to rescue the Syrian regime, before it faces a strategic loss to the Saudis and the Sunnis.

The Alawite regime does not look like it can hold for long unless the Iranians raise the stakes. Before it falls, it will use chemical weapons to try to survive. After it falls, expect massacres of Alawites, Christians, Sunni collaborators and other minority tribes and cults.  This will not end well.

That didn't seem too optimistic.

Also, someone EMailed out to a group of folks:

Did any of you catch Putin's speech to his ambassadors and foreign service VIP's earlier this month? Here's the salient excerpt:

....The traditional Western economic powers are being weakened by the crisis, which has exacerbated social and economic problems in the developed economies, and by the multi-vector nature of global development today.  We can already see this for a fact now.

Colleagues, this is no cause for joy. We should not take delight in this turn of events, and much less feel malicious glee.  On the contrary, we cannot but worry over these developments, because the consequences of these tectonic shifts in the global economy are not yet clear, nor are the inevitable shifts in the international balance of power and in global policy that will follow.

We are all the more worried when we see attempts by some actors in international relations to maintain their traditional influence, often by resorting to unilateral action that runs counter to the principles of international law.  We see evidence of this in so-called ‘humanitarian operations’, the export of bomb and missile diplomacy, and intervention in internal conflicts.

We see how contradictory and unbalanced the reform process is in North Africa and the Middle East, and I am sure that many of you still have the tragic events in Libya before your eyes.  We cannot allow a repeat of such scenarios in other countries, in Syria, for example.  I believe that we must do everything possible to press the parties in this conflict into negotiating a peaceful political solution to all issues of dispute.  We must do all we can to facilitate such a dialogue.  Of course this is a more complex and subtle undertaking than intervention using brute force from outside, but only this process can guarantee a lasting settlement and future stable development in the region, and in Syria’s case, in the country itself….

This crisis is about more than Syria.  So, here is the question:

Having given such clear signals of the importance Russia places on being at the center of an international decision on Syria, what are the likely second and third order effects of us deciding to run roughshod over Putin and intervene directly in Syria in force without the legal cover of the UNSC or an understanding with Moscow as to Russian interests in Syria?

Yes, we are facing another bloodbath in a country that is in a bad neighborhood.  A set of bad steps there could result in worse down the road.  Neither Russia nor China will want to see the US pursue the idea that R2P (Responsibility to Protect) gives one sovereign nation the right to invade another.  In fact, given that they have a number of dissident minorities, they will be sensitive to what the US does.

UPDATE:  One of my critics demanded that I spell out R2P.

Regards  —  Cliff