Imminent mistakes in Syria

[kandrathe]

It's another "Better the devil you know" situation for me. And THAT makes me feel just sick about myself, because I really do feel for the civilians in Syria. But the better Devil that I know inside myself tells me that regime change would only lead to a stronger presence of Islamic Extremists in control of Syria.

Interesting, really. I think I just had one of those universal aha! moments. For my work, what I've specialized in for 30 years is "change". It is often resisted, often met with suspicion, sometimes it does end up worse, and it's often painful. Change is inevitable, and the way we deal with change defines how well we manage, or how we enable the eventual adaptation to that change. If you don't have a reasonable method of managing change, you end up spending most of your time "putting out fires" every time a change occurs. You end up wasting more time dealing with the unforeseen consequences of the needed change.

I believe the Assad regime has committed an atrocity that precludes him from serving as the leader of Syria. They need a change, and the issue is how do we bring him to justice, and return Syria to a nation state or neighbor we can live beside? I'm thinking whatever we do, we should do as the UN, we should have a common agreed upon goal, and we should execute that plan with determination. We should find and support the reasonable people in Syria who desire to prosper in peaceful modern civil society. The plan should be built with the aid of the Arab league. This is hard work, and will require determined diplomacy. We probably cannot get Russia "on board", but we can coerce them into abstaining at the UNSC. I fear that now though, the drums of war will drown out the gentle voices of diplomacy.

I think that whenever we act through organizations, like the UN, the Arab league, Parliament, Congress or even courts of law, we strengthen and empower them. We show people that our society has faith in them. Whenever we ignore these social institutions, and trample on the rule of law (and international conventions and treaties) we pull out their teeth, and make them impotent.

P.S. More recently, I've become a pretty avid follower of GG news.