Three month ago I wrote:
The U.S. public is against an open war on Syria. That is the likely reason why the Obama administration is holding back. But that reasoning may well change when the U.S. presidential election is over.
Just a few minutes after the election results were known pressure started to escalate the war on Syria:
Britain and the United States should make finding a way to solve the Syrian crisis a priority following the re-election of President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday.
“Right here in Jordan I’m hearing appalling stories of what is happening inside Syria,” Cameron told journalists at a camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan.
“…One of the first things I want to talk to Barack about is how we must do more to try and solve this crisis.”
Britain will now open direct talks with the armed insurgent groups.
Meanwhile the Russian foreign minister Lavrov claimed that the insurgents use U.S. made Stinger missiles, not Soviet era SA-7s from Libya, to down Syrian aircraft:
“We have verified information that there are more than 50 stingers in Syria now,” Lavrov told a press conference in Amman, Jordan, referring to a type of surface-to-air missile. The conference followed talks with the minister’s Jordanian counterpart, Nasser Judeh.
Lavrov reminded the press that leaders of the Free Syrian Army had many times said that it considered civilian aircraft to be legitimate targets.
Shunted by the U.S., the Syrian National Council is now trying to change its feathers:
Syria’s main opposition bloc, under US pressure to reshape into a widely representative government-in-exile, agreed on Monday to broaden its structure to accommodate 13 other groups, a spokesman said.
…
Participants “have agreed a restructuring plan and to reduce the number of (current) members of the general secretariat to accommodate 200 new members representing 13 political groups and independents,” said SNC spokesman Ahmad Kamel.Kamel said the existing membership would be reduced from 313 to 220 to pave the way for the additional 200 members. The general secretariat will convene in its revamped form on Tuesday, he added.
The meeting is also expected to discuss an initiative by leading dissident Riad Seif, which seems to enjoy US support but has encountered reservations from some SNC members, to unite all Syrian groups opposed to Assad.
Instead of some 300 quarreling members there will now be 400 with even more diverse interests and opinions.
But there is a prize dangling in front of all these people. As Al Jazeerah correspondent Hashem Ahelbarra notes:
Riad Seif told SNC French President Francois Hollande promised him weapons if the Syrian opposition would reunite
Over the last months the insurgents have made zero military advances. They now use more and more bomb explosions and assassinations against those Syrians, likely a majority, who are not with them:
“We are planning to escalate our attacks on the areas of the government thugs,” said one member of the Jundullah Battalion, a unit of the Free Syrian Army full of Sunni Muslim fundamentalists.
The Brits are “talking” to the armed opposition, the French are promising more weapons and U.S. made Stingers are floating around. There are talks between Turkey and the U.S. to deploy Patriot missiles near the Syrian Turkish border. These could create a no-fly zone in northern Syria. All signs are still pointing to a further escalation of the war on Syria. We can expect Obama to join in that.
There is of course an alternative. Obama could tell Hollande and Cameron to stand down. He could tell Erdogan to shut down the weapon and fighter traffic between Turkey and Syria. He could read the riot act to the Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Without outside resources the insurgency in Syria would soon die down. Anyone really interested in stopping the fighting in Syria would chose this path.
There is even a convenient and real excuse to stop the intervention in Syria. The insurgents the U.S. and others supported in Libya took at least part in the killing of ambassador Stevens. But instead of using that to stop the catastrophe Obama will likely escalate in Syria which then might well end up in a Somalia and Libya like anarchy.