“No one here [in Washington] thinks the Annan plan is going to work,” says Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “This plan does not deal with the disease itself. The disease is very simple. You have a minority-dominated regime that is not about to give up power, that has a 42-year record of not being able to reform, ruling over an opposition carved out of one of the youngest populations in the Middle East outside the Palestinian territories. It’s just a storm.”
Assad’s actions in Syria spur US to consider intervening
The ongoing violence in Syria, despite the regime’s lip service to the Annan peace plan, has pushed the Obama administration to weigh stronger steps.
By Nicholas Blanford, Correspondent / April 23, 2012
BEIRUT, LEBANON
The European Union slapped new sanctions on the Syrian regime on Monday, a gesture of further international pressure on President Bashar al-Assad amid widespread pessimism over UN envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan.
The United Nations Security Council on Saturday authorized the deployment of up to 300 unarmed military observers to monitor a tenuous cease-fire in Syria that formally came into effect on April 12 as part of the Annan plan. But violence has continued since then and US officials have hinted that a failure by the Assad regime to honor the six-point Annan plan could lead to UN sanctions being imposed even before the expiry of a 90-day deadline for its implementation.
Yet given international divisions over how to address the crisis in Syria, as well as doubts about the viability of the Annan plan, the question remains: If the peace plan founders, what’s next?
“No one here [in Washington] thinks the Annan plan is going to work,” says Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “This plan does not deal with the disease itself. The disease is very simple. You have a minority-dominated regime that is not about to give up power, that has a 42-year record of not being able to reform, ruling over an opposition carved out of one of the youngest populations in the Middle East outside the Palestinian territories. It’s just a storm.” read the entire article at source
