Michael Weiss again makes the case for active Western support for the Syrian opposition.
Here is the real travesty of this revolution. Russia, Iran and Hezbollah have all been “intervening” in Syria’s internal affairs for ten months now. Meanwhile, the Arab League, the United States and the European Union have all determined that any claim to sovereignty Assad might have had in 2011 is null and void in 2012. What is needed, therefore, is not condemnations, demarches and shuttered embassies but a Western equivalent of intervention in Syria, namely in the form of:
• Humanitarian “safe areas” to provide food, aid and medical supplies to the civilian population and give the various opposition groups a headquarters inside their own country
• Advanced weapons and communication devices for the Syrian rebels
• A no-fly zone to stop the regime from using its aircraft to conduct reconnaissance, offload security personnel and – yes – strafe rebel strongholds from the sky.Elements of the dead Left view a US military presence in the Middle East as more of a menace than a Soviet-style totalitarianism which rapes young boys in front of their fathers and murders newborn infants just for the hell of it. I don’t expect them to concede that their anti-imperialist theses are less important than Arab lives. But they have no right to misrepresent the will of the people doing the bleeding and dying. If certain comment editors have difficulty finding Syrians on the ground who want Nato fighter jets overhead, I’ll be glad to introduce them to several.
