The international community need to intervene in Syria

When will the international community finally step in and actively halt the civil war in Syria? It has been over two years, since opposition forces began their campaign against the Bashar al-Assad regime with no end in sight. The United Nations estimate that almost 100,000 people have been killed and many more been injured.

In the last few days the UN refugee chief, Antonio Guterres, has reported that the conflict in Syria has become the worst refugee crises facing the world since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Guterres estimates that over 6000 Syrians are fleeing the conflict every day, with Turkey, Jordan and Iraq being the main destinations. On top of this figure, the UN further estimates that over 6 million people are in need of aid supplies.

This report from the UN is quite disturbing, seeing that I would have thought, and I assume others would as well, that the international community would have learnt its lesson after the Rwandan genocide, but this does not seem the case.

I think that with all the recent reports over the last few months, of chemical weapons been deployed by both sides, that’s if the information is correct, and now with the ever increasing death toll and refugee crises, outside intervention may need to be examined even further.  The small amount of light military and other supplies to the opposition forces by the United States and European nations does not seem to be giving an advantage to the rebels, especially since government troops are being supplied with heavier weaponry from Russia.

The best option to end this conflict is through peace talks, but this has failed in the past and is unlikely to happen in the near future. Both sides seem content on fighting to the death and innocent civilians are becoming by-standers suffering the most. The only option that I can see to bringing peace is for more concerted effort by the outside world to actively intervene. To achieve this option would be for a meeting to take place between the all five permanent UN Security Council members and other nations from the region to discuss and hopefully come to a better solution to ending the conflict, then what has been proposed in the past.

The report by the UN on the scale of the violence and instability caused to millions of Syrians will I hope motivate more concerted action by the international community, before more innocent lives are lost. 

How peace can be achieved in Afghanistan?

Image source: WikiCommons, Photo credit: Sergeant Brandon Aird US Army 

As the date for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan gets nearer, peace and stability still seems a long way off. By the end of 2014, less than two years away, most international combat troops are planning to leave, handing over the responsibility of securing the country to the Afghan National Army (ANA).

Although foreign forces hope to have further weakened the Taliban by the time they depart, reality on the ground seems to suggest that the Taliban will still have the capability to wage war against the Afghan government, who they view as puppets to the United States (US) and are corrupting the country.

Over the last few years their has been an international effort to bring both the Taliban and Afghan government to the negotiating table to discuss how to bring peace and stability, but on every occasion, disagreement or outright rejection by both sides has lead to a stalemate.

The most recent attempt to bring stability to the region was in early February this year when the British Prime Minister David Cameron held peace talks between leaders of Britain, Afghanistan and Pakistan, in a bid to bring stability to the region. Although many issues were discussed, but with out representatives of the Taliban not been present, the future peace and security were not solved.

Unfortunately, I don't think the objectives of the US and NATO to bring stability to Afghanistan and its people will be achieved, especially when any signs of peace talks by both sides seem unlikely in the near future. The Taliban are a disbanded force hiding out in Pakistan waiting to attack foreign and Afghan forces, and when international troops leave, they are likely to regroup and return to Afghanistan in a bid to either remove the Karzai government or take control over some areas of the country.

To bring peace and stability in Afghanistan will involve spending more resources to developing the countries non-existent infrastructure and helping the people, who many are drawn to the Taliban due to the corrupt and incompetent government. The international community also needs to end their interference into Afghan politics which feeds the corruption. Finally, all sides of the conflict, including the Taliban need to meet as equals to discuss how Afghanistan and the wider region can achieve long term peace and stability, if not this conflict could spread into regional civil war.

Another unfortunate truth is that all these solutions are unlikely in the current situation.