The French Tom Friedman, Bernard-Henri Lévy, is calling for war again. Infamous as the man who convinced his pal Sarkozy that a short, victorious war in Libya would help his election chances - leading Sarko to drag in the Brits and Cameron to drag in the US - he's now looking to the UK's Cameron to lead the charge against Syria. The platform is his new nacissistic movie about how he started the Libya intervention.

According to Lévy the film shows why intervention worked in Libya and not Iraq and how the conditions are present in Syria. “In Iraq we had no international mandate, there was no demand on the ground of the people, there was no representative leader for the forces against Saddam Hussein, in Iraq it was Western versus Arab country in Libya there was a real coalition with Arab countries involved in coalition with Emirati and Qatar forces. Intervention is justified if you have these conditions.”

Luckily - since Syria is a very different and far harder proposition than Libya both militarily and socially and in any case the whole notion of "humanitarian intervention" is on a shaky footing - I doubt Cameron will be so easy to fool.

I guess the Saudis, Quataris, Libyans and Turks all want that special rubber stamp of American approval...just in case they need someone to blame later.

As one diplomatic effort after another fails to end more than a year of brutal violence in Syria, the Obama administration is preparing a plan that would essentially give U.S. nods of approval to arms transfers from Arab nations to some Syrian opposition fighters.

The effort, U.S. officials told The Associated Press, would vet members of the Free Syrian Army and other groups to determine whether they are suitable recipients of munitions to fight the Assad government and to ensure that weapons don’t wind up in the hands of al-Qaida-linked terrorists or other extremist groups such as Hezbollah that could target Israel.

Racist attacks on black Africans - they're not just for Libyans.

Demonstrators have attacked African migrants in Tel Aviv in a protest against refugees and asylum-seekers that indicates an increasingly volatile mood in Israel over what it terms as "infiltrators".

Miri Regev, a member of the Israeli parliament, told the crowd "the Sudanese are a cancer in our body". The vast majority of asylum-seekers in Israel are from Sudan and Eritrea.

Around 1,000 demonstrators took part in the demonstration on Wednesday night, waving signs saying: "Infiltrators, get out of our homes" and "Our streets are no longer safe for our children." A car containing Africans was attacked and shops serving the refugee community were looted. Seventeen people were arrested.

A reporter for the Israeli daily Maariv described it as an "unbridled rampage" and explosion of "pent-up rage".

Seems to me everyone in the North has it in for sub-Saharans. But I do wonder whether the Israeli bigots have a heirarchy of racism which ranks Arabs and black Africans on a scale of hateability. The bigots would doubtless complain that their hate is also about "infiltrators" taking jobs and causing crime. As Ta-Nehisi Coates notes today though, "Complicating racism with other factors doesn't make it any better. It just makes it racism. Again." That's as true in Israel as it is anywhere else.

Rick Gladstone | Aleppo, Syria | May 18

NYT - Antigovernment anger in Syria escalated on Friday over the harsh repression of students in Aleppo, the country’s largest city, where activists reported what they called the most extensive protests there yet in the 15-month-old nationwide uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Many thousands of demonstrators, including some government loyalists, participated in the protests, according to dispatches by activists and witnesses interviewed by telephone. Sympathy protests for victims of the crackdown on the students were also reported in several other Syrian cities in what organizers called “the heroes of Aleppo University” demonstrations, and in some cases they were broken up by security forces using live ammunition.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has given an ominous warning to the West about military adventurism against Syria and Iran.

"Hasty military operations in foreign states usually bring radicals to power," Medvedev, president for four years until Vladimir Putin's inauguration on May 7, told a conference in St. Petersburg in remarks posted on the government's website.

"At some point such actions which undermine state sovereignty may lead to a full-scale regional war, even, although I do not want to frighten anyone, with the use of nuclear weapons," Medvedev said. "Everyone should bear this in mind."

I suspect he may be talking about Israel's nuclear arsenal there. If Israel became embroilled in an attack on Iran, missiles tipped with chemical weapons might well be a retaliation to which Israel's obvious recourse would be nukes. Or maybe he's talking about some hypothetical way down the road where an arc of failed states comprising US-conquered Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan leads to so much non-state trouble boiling up that it sparks an India-Pakistan war. Maybe he's setting out Russia's stall. Reuter's Gleb Bryanski writes:

Medvedev gave no further explanation. Nuclear-armed Russia has said publicly that it is under no obligation to protect Syria if it is attacked, and analysts and diplomats say Russia would not get involved in military action if Iran were attacked.

Russia has adamantly urged Western nations not to attack Iran to neutralize its nuclear program or intervene against the Syrian government over bloodshed in which the United Nations says its forces have killed more than 9,000 people.

"No obligation" isn't the same as "won't, never-ever" and maybe the conventional wisdom of all those analysts about Russian intentions in the region is plain wrong. It wouldn't be the first time the experts have been flatfooted. One things for sure, the PM of Russia wasn't just flapping his gums.

Nicholas Blanford | Abboudiyah, North Lebanon | May 14

CSM - A recent escalation in cross-border shootings and tit-for-tat kidnappings along Lebanon’s northern frontier with Syria is fuelling concerns that the year-long violence in Syria is spilling into Lebanon.

In the past week alone, several people, including an old woman, have been shot dead allegedly by Syrian soldiers firing into Lebanon, clashes have resumed between rival factions in Lebanon’s perennially tense second largest city, Tripoli, leaving four people dead, and some 40 Sunni Syrians have been kidnapped in reprisal for the abduction of three Lebanese Shiites.

The Lebanese government, which is backed by the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has adopted a policy of disassociation with the crisis in neighboring Syria, mindful that Lebanon is deeply polarized between supporters and opponents of the Assad regime. But Sunni residents of villages strung along the northern border with Syria accuse the Lebanese government and security services of either failing to block Syrian transgressions or actively colluding with the Syrian regime in some of the abductions.

“Any person who is wanted by the Syrians is easily picked up because the Lebanese authorities are working with the Syrian security,” says Ali, a 22 year-old resident of the border village of Abboudiyah. Like others interviewed here, Ali requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject.

Ian Black | May 10

The Guardian - The question of who was behind the latest grim images from Syria – of bomb craters, blast-damaged buildings, burned-out vehicles charred corpses and body parts – was being asked even before the smoke had cleared.

Syrian state media quickly blamed unidentified terrorists for two large car bombs that exploded in the early morning outside offices of the Mukhabarat secret police in a Damascus suburb. But opposition spokesmen denied responsibility and accused the Assad regime of carrying out the atrocity.

The 50-plus death toll made the attack the biggest in the capital since the start of the Syrian uprising in March 2011. It was sophisticated and co-ordinated – one blast was followed by a second larger one, maximising casualties, damage and terror.

Haitham Maleh and Bassam Ja'ara, leading opposition spokesmen, blamed the regime and claimed it was reacting to criticism from Kofi Annan, the UN and Arab League envoy, about the failure to implement his six-point peace plan. The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the main armed wing of the opposition, insisted that it was still observing a ceasefire under the terms of the Annan plan.

It's pretty clear that neither side in Syria wants a peaceful resolution. Rebel bomb attacks, what would be called terrorism if it happnened here, are rising while the Syrian authorities have stopped using as many heavy weapons but are continuing right on with mass arrests and lower-key attacks. UN SecGen Ban Ki-moon has it right:

"The government and all elements of the opposition must realize that we have a brief window to stop the violence, a brief opportunity to create an opening for political engagement between the government and those seeking change," Ban said.

"If this opportunity is not seized, I fear that what ... Annan has warned about will come to pass - a full-scale civil war with catastrophic effects within Syria and across the region," he said.

But - sometimes civil wars just have to happen and no matter how long you tamp them down they erupt again eventually. We're seeing that beginning to happen in Iraq now and most fully expect it in Afghanistan too. Western intervention to referee the sides in an inevitable civil war might just be the very definition of stupid. Perhaps all we can do is to help try to contain the knock-on effects in the region and beyond - as we are still singularly failing to do in Libya.

The Syrian Elections: How the Regime's Official Media Covered It

Addounia had back-to-back coverage of the election throughout the day, splitting its screen four ways (and sometimes six) to present images from polling stations across the country. Many of the feeds were tight shots focused on the election monitors seated behind ballot boxes. At one point, a shot from a town on the outskirts of the capital Damascus went black, after the minutes-long feed showed that the station appeared empty. Three officials were idly waiting for voters who didn't show up during the live transmission.
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Still, you wouldn't know it from Addounia's coverage. The station had correspondents canvassing the country, including in the battered city of Homs, which has borne much of the brunt of the regime's wrath. Although some of the city's neighborhoods have been badly battered, Addounia's excitable female correspondent Kinda Khodr suggested there was a party atmosphere across Syria's third-largest city. "I'm not going to talk about the number of voters, the camera will show you that!" she said, as the camera panned out to a crowded room that broke out into chants of "Abu Hafez," in reference to the president. Khodr then walked into an adjacent classroom, pointed to a plastic semi-transparent ballot box that looked to be about three quarters full, visual proof of robust participation.

Martin Chulov | Beirut | May 4

The Guardian - Report gathers harrowing testimony of victims and families caught in purge of northern city by regime troops and loyalists

Syrian forces are executing scores of suspected opposition sympathisers in the northern city of Idlib, often burning their bodies in piles or torching them in their homes then sending family members to find them, witnesses say.

Idlib residents who spoke to an Amnesty International official last month painted a dire portrait of a city at the mercy of regime troops and irregular loyalists who routinely sweep homes seeking dissenters to kill.

Ed Cropley | Round up | Apr 28

Reuters - Gunmen in inflatable dinghies killed several security officials in an attack on a military unit on Syria's Mediterranean coast, state media said on Saturday, the first seaborne assault reported during the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

The night raid, along with the killings of at least 15 people in violence in two areas near the capital, underlined the threadbare state of a U.N.-brokered ceasefire deal that has Western leaders talking of tougher steps to stop the bloodshed.

Russia, Damascus' most powerful ally, stepped up its criticism of anti-Assad militias, condemning what it called "barbarous" attacks designed to scuttle the two-week-old truce engineered by U.N.-Arab League mediator Kofi Annan.

Syria's official SANA news agency said several gunmen and soldiers died in fighting that followed the coastal attack near the northern port of Latakia, 35 km (22 miles) south of the Turkish border.

"The fighting ... resulted in the death and wounding of a number of military personnel while the number of those killed from the terrorist group was not known because they attacked the military unit at night," SANA said.

It did not state the nationality of the attackers. <-- weird add in

Ankara | Apr 28

Huriryet Daily - Turkey warned Syria today not to repeat border violations, implying that it could use force to protect its border and call on NATO to respond to a potential Syrian attack.

“We have strong armed forces. We will carefully continue to take steps to this end. But Syria must be aware of the fact that in the event of a repetition of these border violations, Turkey’s stance will not be the same,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in an interview with Al-Jazeera, Anatolia news agency reported.

Scott Wilson | Washington | April 23

WaPo - President Obama outlined a series of policies Monday aimed at helping the U.S. government better respond to the threat of genocide around the world, declaring that “national sovereignty is never a license to slaughter your people.”

Speaking at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Obama invoked the international community’s vows of “never again” but also cited the difficulties of fulfilling that pledge in the 21st century, recalling post-World War II mass killings in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia and other places to say, “We are haunted by the atrocities we did not stop, by the lives we did not save.”

Obama announced the formal establishment of the Atrocities Prevention Board, which will draw senior officials from across the government. The panel will serve as a clearinghouse for real-time intelligence, policymaking and other issues related to the threat of mass killings.

Jo Adetunji | United Nations | April 21

The Guardian - UN security council votes unanimously to expand its mission and demands immediate halt to post-ceasefire violence

The UN security council has unanimously voted to send 300 unarmed military observers to Syria to monitor the fragile ceasefire between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and opposition groups.

The resolution approved on Saturday increases the number of observers in the UNSMIS mission from 30 and demands an immediate halt to the violence that has been escalating since a ceasefire took effect over a week ago.

It also authorises the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to decide when to deploy the additional observers based on "relevant developments on the ground, including the cessation of violence".

By Ruth Sherlock & Suha Maayeh | Beirut / Amman | April 18

The Telegraph - Syria's Assad regime is trying to stop women and children fleeing the country, refugees and activists have told The Daily Telegraph.

The attempt, which appears well organised and is assumed to be intended to prevent men defecting or joining the opposition, has led to a build-up of thousands of refugees inside the borders with Lebanon and particularly Jordan.

"Most families that fled to Lebanon in recent weeks escaped Syria using smuggling routes," said Burhan Abu Saleh, a spokesman for a volunteer Syrian refugee group.

United Nations | Apr 15

AFP - The UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution on Saturday to send observers to monitor Syria's shaky truce, as reports there said 12 people were killed in violence.

Russia, which raised earlier reservations over the Western-drafted text, and China backed the vote, ensuring the first Security Council resolution on Syria since an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad broke out 13 months ago.

UN Resolution 2042 approved sending the first 30 unarmed military monitors to the conflict-wracked state as soon as possible and the first five or six of them are expected to arrive on Sunday, officials said.

The resolution called for both the Syrian government and opposition forces to bring a halt to "armed violence in all its forms."

It also urged the government to "implement visibly" all commitments under UN-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan, including the withdrawal of all troops and heavy guns from Syrian cities.

Assad and the opposition must also "guarantee the safety of the advance team without prejudice to its freedom of movement and access," and the "primary responsibility" for observers' safety will rest with the Syrian government.

A new resolution with a full mandate will be required to ensure a full monitoring mission of more than 200 observers.

Against all expectations, some calm has descended upon Syria today, as President Assad's forces appear to be mostly observing a ceasefire agreed with the UN's Kofi Annan.

BEIRUT (AP) — A fragile cease-fire brokered by the U.N. took hold in Syria on Thursday with regime forces apparently halting widespread attacks on the opposition. But there were reports of scattered violence and the government defied demands to pull troops back to barracks.

...Ban will now ask the U.N. Security Council for speedy deployment of an observer mission, said special envoy Kofi Annan, who brokered the truce.

In the hours after the 6 a.m. deadline, a civilian was reported killed and the state-run news agency said "terrorist groups" launched a roadside bomb that killed a soldier. But there was no sign of the heavy shelling, rocket attacks and sniper fire that have become routine.

Kudos to Annan. He said on Tuesday that the ceasefire might still be viable after one deadline came and went, and he was right. But right now I'm watching my Twitter feed and all the usual Very Serious Suspects are predicting the ceasefire will foul up any moment now, instead of being happy about Annan's success and the reduction in bloodshed it means for right now. It's particularly hypocritical of them given so many have cloaked their neoliberal calls for Syrian regime change in humanitarian sheep's clothing, but there you go.

Two sides of the same event, one promoting a war friendly narrative based on some human rights group, the other from Pepe Escobar in the Asia Times.

"Syrian forces fired across the border into a refugee camp in Turkey, wounding five people, authorities said. The soldiers were firing at rebels who tried to escape after ambushing a military checkpoint, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights [SOHR]. On the border with Lebanon, a cameraman for Lebanon's Al Jadeed TV station was killed by shots fired from Syria, the station said.

"Turkey shelters thousands of refugees fleeing Assad's military, which has killed 9,000 people since March 2011 in an attempt to put down an uprising, according to the United Nations." USA Today, April 9

What is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights? "SOHR is run out of a two-bedroom terraced home in Coventry by one man using the name Rami Abdulrahman (or Rami Abdul Rahman, or Rami Abdelrahman). He also runs a clothes shop." Wikipedia This source is a new low, even for McPaper, USA Today.

Here's what Pepe Escobar says about the same situation.

"Turkey is sheltering the FSA right on the border, only a few meters - and not kilometers - away from Syrian territory. Way beyond hosting a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) command and control center in Iskenderun for months now - a fact already reported by Asia Times Online - Turkey has now advanced right to the border, enabling a back-and-forth by heavily weaponized guerrillas/mercenaries to attack a sovereign state.

"Imagine a similar scenario happening, say, at a Mexican-US border in Arizona or Texas."
.Pepe Escobar - What's goin' on at the Turkish-Syrian border? April 11

The deadline for a hoped-for ceasefire in Syria has passed without ending violence there, with Syrian government troops continuing to shell the city of Homs, according to reports. A statement from the UN's Kofi Annan, however, says that "We still have time between now and the 12th to stop the violence and I appeal to all concerned, the Government in the first place, and the opposition forces". He continued:

“I believe it’s a bit too early to say that the plan has failed,” Mr. Annan said. “The plan is still on the table and it’s a plan we are all fighting to implement. It’s a plan the Council has endorsed, a plan the Syrians have endorsed, and from the comments made by the opposition they are also prepared to go along with it if the Government meets its commitments to pull the troops out. So the plan is very much alive.”

Jacob Resneck, Jabeen Bhatti and Ruby Russell | Reyhanli, Turkey | Apr 9

USA TODAY - Violence in Syria and at its borders continued to rage Monday on the eve of a cease-fire that analysts said they doubted would be agreed to by President Bashar Assad.

"The Syrian government is in a race against time to basically crush the armed wing of the uprising and have the upper hand in any political negotiations," said Fawaz Gerges, director of the Middle East Center, London School of Economics.

"The Assad regime and the rebels have locked themselves into a protracted and bloody conflict. Both camps are planning for the long term," he said.

Syrian forces fired across the border into a refugee camp in Turkey, wounding five people, authorities said. The soldiers were firing at rebels who tried to escape after ambushing a military checkpoint, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. On the border with Lebanon, a cameraman for Lebanon's Al Jadeed TV station was killed by shots fired from Syria, the station said.

Turkey shelters thousands of refugees fleeing Assad's military, which has killed 9,000 people since March 2011 in an attempt to put down an uprising, according to the United Nations.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry demanded Syria stop shooting across the border, saying that the refugees "are under the full protection of Turkey."

Sebnem Arsu & Alan Cowell | Ankara | April 9

NYT - Turkish officials said on Monday that Syrian government forces had opened fire across the border late Sunday, killing two people and wounding three others close to one of the largest Syrian refugee camps in Turkey.

Reports from the area seemed confused, with some accounts from activists inside Syria saying that a large number of reinforcements for the government troops, backed by tanks and helicopters, had arrived close to Turkish territory. A Turkish government official said the three people who were wounded — two Syrians and a Turkish translator — were hit when they tried and failed to rescue two unidentified civilians who were shot and killed near the border.

Alastair Beach | Apr 5

The Independent - Russia yesterday claimed the West was undermining the work of international peace envoy Kofi Annan, warning Britain and her allies not to arm Syria's rebels as a deadline for implementing an international peace plan approaches.

Moscow's Foreign Minister claimed that even if Western nations decided to "arm the Syrian opposition to the teeth", rebel fighters would be powerless to vanquish the better armed and still largely loyal national army. "The carnage will go on for many years," warned Sergey Lavrov.

His comments came as yet more civilians were killed by shellfire and gun battles across the country, with President Bashar al-Assad refusing so far to abide by the terms of Mr Annan's peace initiative and withdraw his tanks and troops from besieged towns, despite promising to accede to the terms of a ceasefire proposed by the former UN Secretary General.

Kofi Annan thinks there might be a chance for a truce in Syria.

"Mr. Annan reported that the Syrian Foreign Minister sent him a letter yesterday in which he said that the Syrian military will begin immediately and by April 10 will complete the cessation of all forward deployment and use of heavy weapons and will complete its withdrawal from population centers," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told reporters.

Speaking after Annan addressed a closed-door meeting of the 15-nation council via video link, Rice added that Annan's deputy Nasser al-Kidwa "has also had constructive exchanges with the opposition to urge them to cease their operations within 48 hours of a complete cessation of government hostilities."

Rice expressed skepticism about Assad's truthfulness while ignoring that the rebels haven't actually promised a damn thing yet, even if Assad does what he says he will. There's been no sign of even a slowdown in Syrian government forces' attacks as yet, but armistices have a way of taking time to gain momentum.

At least Kofi Annan's plan is worth a try. It's certainly a better one than the one beloved of neoliberal interventionists in the US, which would involve a costly US air war against a defense system five times more sophisticated than Libya's and tens of thousands of ground troop committed to secure both safe havens and Syria's WMD stockpiles. Such an adventure would have regime change at its heart - the interventionists' real aim no matter their humanitarian R2P protestations - but would cost in the order of $40 billion a year even in the highly unlikely case that it worked perfectly according to plan.

Istanbul | Apr 1

CBS News - A coalition of more than 70 partners, including the United States, pledged Sunday to send millions of dollars and communications equipment to Syria's opposition groups, signaling deeper involvement in the conflict amid a growing belief that diplomacy and sanctions alone cannot end the Damascus regime's repression.

The shift by the U.S. and its Western and Arab allies toward seeking to sway the military balance in Syria carries regional risks because the crisis there increasingly resembles a proxy conflict that could exacerbate sectarian tensions. The Syrian rebels are overmatched by heavily armed regime forces.

The summit meeting of the "Friends of the Syrian People" follows a year of failed diplomacy that seems close to running its course with a troubled peace plan led by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.
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Clinton said the United States is providing communications equipment to help anti-government activists in Syria organize, remain in contact with the outside world and evade regime attacks
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The delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria's beleaguered civilians is a key provision of Annan's plan. Clinton announced $12 million in additional aid for Syria's people — doubling the total U.S. assistance so far.

The Saudis and other Arab Gulf states have proposed giving weapons to the rebels, while the U.S. and other allies have balked out of fear of fueling an all-out civil war. Washington hasn't taken any public position on the fund, but it appears that it has given tacit support to its Arab allies.

Mar 31

Reuters - Syria says the year-old revolt to topple President Bashar al-Assad is over, but the army again shelled opposition areas on Saturday and rebels said they would not cease fire until tanks, artillery and heavy weapons are withdrawn.

Washington and Gulf Arab states urged peace envoy Kofi Annan to set a timeline for "next steps" if there is no ceasefire, and Saudi Arabia repeated a call for rebels to be armed.

Annan has said neither measure would be helpful. The former U.N. chief's mission has brought no respite in the killings.

Syria also said it would keep its forces in cities to "maintain security" until it is safe to withdraw in line with the peace deal, which Assad has said he accepts.