The
funny thing is - the Ottoman's need to step up.  Oh, it's funny cause
it's true.  See, the Ottomans have long been regarded as a regional
heavyweight.  Cyprus, Iraq (and if ya really need a laff sometime - hit
up the Turkic Charge d"Affairs in DC bout why cause there isn't a Kurdistan - their phone num is (202) 612-6712)

Yet
when it really matters - like taking a 6 hour panzer ride to Damascus
to halt unacceptable behavior - the Ottomans are the pushies of the ME. 
Fully crunk with non profit jawflapping and boring assetted
inappropriate handwringing - the Ottomans are a weak joke of a regional power. 

Now, in Syria’s carnage, Turkey is facing a critical test of her
regional and global aspirations.  It is time for her leaders to stop
talking and start acting. 

Turkey first raised the idea of establishing a buffer zone for the Syrian
opposition on the Syrian-Turkish border three months ago, when the
Syrian death toll was roughly half of what it is now.  By mid-November,
Erdoğan was the second regional leader (after Jordan’s King Abdullah)
openly to call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down.  The
end of November again confirmed that the Turkish government
was mooting various relief plans, including the possibility of a buffer
zone. 

Here's irony for you - so far - only the weak and pitiful Arab League has actually acted with action:

The League sent in monitors and formulated a plan for a political transition
in Syria.  After Russia and China vetoed that plan at the United Nations,
and with Syrian forces around Homs (and Zabadani) giving every
indication that they intend to flatten everything in their path,
Turkey proposed holding a conference “as soon as possible” to
“promote international understanding with all countries concerned.” 

A conference?  Turkey is essentially proposing more talk, again delaying
doing something that would make a difference on the ground. Killing is never to be undertaken lightly.  The Turks have many reasons
to worry about the consequences of sending their soldiers into Syria,
even for the most demonstrable humanitarian purposes.  Turkey and Syria
still have border disputes; for many Syrians, scenes of Turkish troops
crossing the border, even behind lines of Syrian opposition fighters,
would rally nationalist pride and strengthen Assad’s narrative of foreign-inspired terrorism and insurgency. 

Yet Turkey is in the best position by far to demonstrate to Assad that
the international community is serious about stopping the killing. 
Working closely with local coordinating committees, it should provide
logistical, intelligence, weapons, training, communications, and even
air support to help the Free Syrian Army establish no-kill zones along
Syria’s northwest border. 

In particular,
Turkey could help the FSA to cut the Syrian army’s lines of
communication, and deny government forces access to entire areas through
the coordinated use of early-warning intelligence and anti-tank and
anti-aircraft weapons.  The FSA might then be able to isolate local
Syrian army commanders and try to negotiate truces and defections,
ultimately building a defensible chain of population centers.  If that
strategy fails, Turkey and Arab League states would have to contemplate
sending in ground troops, with extensive logistical and intelligence
support from NATO. 

Turkey
is currently on the spot, but the larger lesson applies far beyond
Syria and, indeed, the Middle East.  Power stems not just from size,
strategic location, a strong economy, able diplomacy, and military
capacity.  It also requires the will to act – the understanding that true
leadership means the courage to take and implement even decisions that
are deeply unpopular in some quarters. 

Great
Satan has sometimes been too ready to turn to force.  The invasion of
Iraq is a stark reminder of the human and material cost of plunging into
war. 

Australia’s willingness to send troops into Timor-Leste, again under a UN
mandate, may have not only saved that country, but helped transform
Indonesia as well.  Indeed, one sign of Indonesia’s rising influence is
that its army – which had terrorized and massacred East Timorese – could
be called upon today in the service of human rights in its region. 
Likewise, Brazil’s decision to send troops into Haiti in 2004 as part of
a UN Stabilization Force burnished the country’s image as a responsible
regional power. 

Syria
is a far more dangerous assignment than Haiti, to be sure, but if, say,
the government of Paraguay or Uruguay were brutalizing its citizens on a
mass scale, the world would rightly look to Brazil to lead a response. 
In Africa, Nigerian troops have often played a critical role under the
mandate of either the African Union or the Economic Community of West
African States. 

States
that are eager to enjoy the trappings of great-power status – the
deference accorded their diplomats, high-level global parlays abroad and
important diplomatic conferences at home, and the assumption that they
must be consulted on major events or crises in their regions – must
accept the burdens that go with it. 

2
comments:

Grreg RN
said...

I beg to differ with Clinton's "Oh I better look Presidential and fire a bunch of Million dollar missiles while almost a million people died in Rhuwanda and he was sticking cigars in Monica", as the Muslims torched Yugoslavia, the Serbs had the balls to say Enough. 

wHoA! 

h0t! 

~hEy Y"all!  DoN"t MiSs GsGf~! 

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