Operation Ostrava: Month 17, Week 4, Day 3.

As you may have noticed I have not been posting my usual updates on the situation in Syria during the 2012 Olympics. The reason for this is two fold. Firstly with the battle for Aleppo raging the situation on the ground is moving very fast and is constantly changing. Therefore it is very difficult to get accurate information out of the country and by the time I would be able to write anything up it would already be out of date. Secondly while the level of violence has yet to reach the levels seen at say the "Highway of Death" incident when the United States Air Force (USAF) destroyed vehicles at the head of a convoy of Iraqi vehicles fleeing Kuwait on Highway 80 at the end of the first Iraq war before killing everybody and everything both military and civilian in the traffic jam that stretched for many miles Syria is in the grips of a full blown war. Therefore it is not really a suitable topic of conversation for a celebration like the Olympics.

However today I have no choice other then to comment on it because France is pressing for a Foreign Minister level meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). This is a much higher level then the already very high level of regular UNSC meetings and is one step below directly involving Heads of Government/State (HOGS). However I think there is really very little point in holding this meeting because there are only really two options left open to the UNSC at this point. Either they can renew the mandate for the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) in order to allow it to act as a pathfinder mission for a much larger and robust UN Peacekeeping mission similar to those active in Cote De Ivorie or Democratic Republic of Congo that will be needed to contain the sectarian violence that will explode should the Syrian government fall. Alternatively the United States and the European Union members excluding Britain can drop once and for all this insane notion that the Syrian government can be forced to collapse through sanctions. If this were to happen it would lead to an explosion of sectarian violence that will and already has spread beyond Syria's borders into Lebanon, Iraq and Syrian, Turkish and Iraqi Kurdistan. If that does happen neighbouring Israel's security situation will become so dire that you can forget about any attempts at an Israeli/Palestinian peace process or any efforts to improve the lives of the Palestinians because there simply will not be the time nor space.

20:10 on 30/7/12.