Day: December 14, 2013
Will benefits of Geneva II outweigh its costs?
Yesterday’s Friends of Syria Statement from the UK chair tries to clarify the attitudes of leading supporters of the Syrian opposition in light of the Islamic Front’s recent moves to claim exclusive leadership of the military effort. This threatens to leave out in the cold both the Supreme Military Council, a CIA-backed funnel for support to armed moderates, and its political leadership, in what is now being called the National Coalition.
The overriding concern of the Friends of Syria is who will be at the table for the January 22 co-sponsored Geneva II conference on the conflict and whether they will be able to speak authoritatively for the armed opposition. Any hope of success requires that the Islamic Front, or at least part of it, join the National Coalition at the negotiating table. The statement reiterates the opposition’s most important demand, on which both Islamists and secularists are agreed:
We reaffirmed that the aim of Geneva II was to implement a negotiated solution on the basis of the Geneva communiqué, by establishing a Transitional Governing Body with full executive powers agreed by mutual consent. This is the only way to end the conflict. Assad will have no role in Syria, as his regime is the main source of terror and extremism in Syria.
But the Friends of Syria rightly leave the door open to Islamist participation in Geneva, so long as they operate under the political authority of the National Coalition: Read more
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We are Kim’s kin too
I can’t even pretend to know something about North Korea, but it seems to me The Daily Beast has it right: rather than being a sign of strength, Kim Jong Un’s purge and execution of his uncle reflects weakness and foreshadows instability. The military is coming out on top, regime cadres will be running scared and Pyongyang will become more isolated. Uncle Jang Song Thaek was a key liaison with the Chinese, which had been encouraging economic opening and discouraging nuclear adventurism.
This is a difficult situation for the rest of the world. North Korea is a threat to regional stability either way: Kim may gain full command and brandish nuclear weapons against his neighbors (and Washington, though no one thinks he has the capability to target the continental United States), hoping to be paid off in fuel and food. The US has done that several times, but President Obama has sworn off the practice. Or North Korea might collapse, sending refugees into China and the South and leaving behind nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in the hands of who knows who. Read more
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