The Syria Contact Group.

Today (24/2/12) saw the first meeting of the international Contact Group on Syria. However in order to avoid having people point out that what's being planned for Syria is exactly what was being planned for Libya, Nigeria and Somalia the organisers have forgone the formal title of "Contact Group" in favour of the politicised "Friends of Syria Group." Russia has already dubbed the group the "Enemies of Syria" which is probably more accurate. After all friends rarely wage war on each other.

The first priority of the group is to set up logistical corridors in order to re-supply the rebel fighters under the guise of alleviating a humanitarian crisis. The only problem is that there isn't a humanitarian crisis in Syria according to the accepted definition. What there is are several small areas which have experienced an armed uprising or intifada. The Syrian government has placed these areas under a military blockade in order to contain and suppress the uprising. This is an acceptable military practice that has been used in pretty much every war-zone throughout history. Therefore if a foreign power were to violate Syria's territorial integrity by breaching this blockade it will constitute an act of war against Syria. This would allow Syria to go the the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) seeking sanctions up to and including invasion and regime change against any nation violating it's territorial integrity. As Britain has already freely admitted that it is breaching the blockade they would have to be suspended from any UNSC discussion on the matter leaving it up to the United States to sign cheques and call in favours to prevent Syria gaining those sanctions. This is what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meant when she said that the opposition would soon arm itself.

In order to encourage the US to go to this effort the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) are promising that they will work with the UN to replace Assad with a stable Sunni government to counter-balance the Shia dominated government that has risen to power in Iraq following the US invasion. However this too will require a UNSC resolution that the GCC are in no position to get. Even if they were somehow able to the UN is already overstretched by the situations in Libya and Somalia so the most likely outcome is a chaotic semi-failed state which achieves nothing other then giving the Gulf Monarchy's a good argument for why their people should continue to put up with them. If the attempts at bribery fail then the next step from the GCC will be to threaten to cripple the US economy by forcing up the oil price. Under those circumstances it would be handy to have a guy like Qaddafi or a country like Iran around.

Oh and I'm sorry for making the Syria Contact Group look like a pre-ordained publicity stunt rather then a working meeting by publishing it's conclusion before it's finished but these days I've got to write these things when I'm being permitted access to the Internet.



Edited at around 23:40 on 24/2/12 mainly to prove that my home Internet connection is working:

To the surprise of absolutely no-one the Saudi delegation withdraw from the Syria Contact Group at around the time (16:00) that I was writing this post. The sad fact is the Yanks are yet to realise that they only attempted to bribe them because they think they're too stupid to bother threaten.

Elsewhere in the region at around 17:00 the International Red Cross/Crescent (IIRC) declared themselves to be a terrorist organisation by being granted permission by the Syrian government to evacuate people from the one district of Homs that is still occupied by insurgents. You will note that the IIRC are not equally putting pressure on the Turkish government to stop the flow of weapons and personnel into Syria. They are also possibly using the intervention as a cover to evacuate foreign agents from the area without allowing the Syrian government to establish those foreigners biometric ID's. Well the US thought it would be a good idea to play in Afghanistan.

Now have I talked to you about "The Shadow Line"? It's a great BBC2 drama from the early part of 2011. Unfortunately it starts with the killing of a drug dealer and then in the style of "The Wire"expands out to cover all the events that brought us to that point so I can't really tell you any more without spoiling it. It's currently being re-shown on the BBCHD channel but in light of all these cuts they were really hoping you'd buy it on DVD. So much so that the main guy they sent to cover the Libya conflict shares his name with one of the main characters.

Now bring on the porn.


Edited again at around 00:10 on 25/2/12 to add:

It turns out my home Internet connection is still working. I've used this time to open the third bottle of wine and leave a comment on Indymedia.org.uk. It was a response to a story about an Indymedia journalist in Kenya being shot and killed that said simply "At least the Kenyans are aware of Bush era foreign policy." It's a long story involving a British fake al-Shabaab recruitment video and a US drone strike. Personally I'm thinking if we only have one major global summit in 2012 the cab rank principle at least suggests we should go with Somalia.

Now it's Oscar's weekend so I really should be looking at pictures of naked ladies. One day soon I hope to touch a real life one but let us not scare the world just yet.