Syrian crisis: Iran asked to help secure ceasefire
Source: Guardian
Iran has been asked to persuade the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to implement a ceasefire later this month in tandem with an appeal by the UN to halt the flow of weapons to both sides in the country's bloody conflict.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the envoy for the UN and Arab League, used a weekend visit to Iran, a loyal ally of Damascus, to appeal for help in securing a ceasefire to mark Eid al-Adha, the four-day Muslim holiday later this month. In Baghdad on Monday he called on the Iraqi government to use its influence, while Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, called for a speedy "political solution".
Brahimi said a ceasefire would "help create an environment that would allow a political process to develop", said his spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi. But Fawzi denied a report that plans were afoot to send a 3,000-strong UN peacekeeping force to Syria, drawn from an existing UN contingent in south Lebanon.
EU officials dismissed the idea as far-fetched, because it would first require a durable ceasefire and moves towards a political transition both of which have proved elusive over the 19 months of the crisis.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/15/syrian-crisis-iran-help-ceasefire
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Folks think he will be able to ride this out?
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)Its just too impossible to tell because of the muddied waters of whose helping him and whose helping the rebels.
Iran, China and Russia are very, very powerful friends in the region.
Assad actually also does have/did have a pretty significant population of Syrians who support him. He's also supremely aware that if he's forced out/killed/assassinated, it will most likely inflame the regional civil war into a genocidal bloodbath.
pscot
(21,024 posts)Assad or Radical Islam. A Shia dictator or the Taliban.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)I think he's Alawite. Though, I could be wrong.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)And he is Alawite, or so they say.
pscot
(21,024 posts)is another man's Persian, of so I've heard.
I had a guy correct me when I talked about Persians in reference to Iran. "This is about Iran, not Persia." or something like that. Needless to say, that was the end of that conversation.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)replaced by several successor states, autonomous regions, and whatnot to be determined. Something like what we precipitated in Iraq, with the side note that Syria is even more fragmented culturally.
arewenotdemo
(2,364 posts)We should be supporting Assad.
Unless, of course, the object is to secure Israel by dissolving every Arab state in the region, thereby fulfilling the Wolfowitz neocon fantasy.
Jesus, Obama.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Any indication the rebels are down with that?