As I am time restricted today just three points on the developments in Syria:
- The UN report on chemical stuff used in the Damascus suburb Ghouta on August 21 finds (pdf) that Sarin has been used which was probably distributed by unguided 140mm rockets. The report and the facts therein say nothing about who might have fired those missiles.
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The Turkish air force shot down a Syrian helicopter that, it alleges, violated Turkish airspace. The helicopter fell on Syrian ground. This, to me, seems to be an attempt to insert a spoiler into the recently achieved U.S.-Russian understanding about Syria's disarmament of chemical weapons.
That spoiler, and others to come, will likely be ignored by the relevant sides.
- The U.S. is finally recognizing that to keep the Syrian government in place is the least bad choice it has. The former CIA No. 2 Mike Morell is the first of the Washington insiders to publicly make that point. He concludes though, wrongly, that there must be more balance between opposition and the government to achieve some transition first. That is not going to work. The core quote from his interview:
[I]t's going to take the institution of the Syrian military and the institutions of the Syrian security services to defeat al Qaeda when this is done. And every day that goes by, every day that goes by, those institutions are eroded.
