The Geneva summit, being held in hope of ending the five-year civil war in Syria, which has claimed over 250,000 lives and which has also driven millions of so-called “asylum seekers” to Germany, Sweden, Canada and the United States, began Jan. 29, after two previous stalls.
It’s no surprise that the talks will be rendered futile due to lack of representation by Syrian rebel groups who are fighting to depose Syria’s dictatorial, Shiite (Alawite) President, Bashar Al Assad. (Syria is majority Sunni.)
At this point in time, it’s worth asking: How did this civil war, which has evolved into a huge humanitarian crisis, get itself going? Answer: The United States started it as yet another try at pulling off an “Arab Spring” regime change of the sort that has failed dismally in Libya and Egypt. In short, it was the Obama administration that started arming and training some of the rebel groups contending against Assad. It’s almost amusing to note that some of these groups have gone to ISIS or to Jabhat al Nusra, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.
It’s also worth asking: Why is this summit being called a peace talk, when there’s no immediate prospect of peace in Syria? Assad has no intention of stepping down, not when he has the upper hand, backed, as he is, by Russia, Iran, and Lebanon’s Shiite militia, Hezbollah.
Now, what implication does a failed set of Syrian peace talks have for the U.S. and the European Union? It can be said that the pointless talks are distracting the West from a more urgent mission to destroy ISIS. The Assad regime poses no international terrorist threat. No less an august body than the International Institute of War Studies has made it plain that ISIS definitely poses an “existential threat” to world security.
We can only hope that our next president will resist the urge to tilt at windmills and will focus squarely on defeating ISIS once and for all.
Tom Wright
Aztec
