Arab ministers may seek UN help in Syria

[DeathToTheOil]

Arab foreign ministers are in Cairo to discuss the much-criticized monitoring mission in Syria by the Arab League with at least one member of the 22-country League urging UN involvement. On Sunday, the foreign ministers were getting an update on the mission.

Officials from Qatar, which currently heads the Arab League, have recommended that UN representatives and human rights experts be recruited to expand the monitoring mission, according to the al-Jazeera network.

A group of observers has been inside Syria for almost two weeks and their aim was to make sure the administration of President Bashar Assad complies with a peace deal requiring his military forces to withdraw from residential areas, the release of prisoners and the initiation of talks with opposition groups.

Ten Jordanian monitors arrived in Damascus on Saturday, bolstering the number of monitors to 153.

The Arab League has come under harsh criticism, especially from Syrian opposition troops who say they have failed to stop the government's bloody crackdown on protesters.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/01/08/syria-arab-league.html

[David__77]

1. They decided to reject the Qatari effort, for the moment.

Qatar, the Arab power most critical of Damascus, has privately pushed for a greater UN role within the monitoring mission. But foreign ministers on the League's Syria steering committee, which met in Cairo yesterday, ruled out giving the mission an international dimension by inviting UN experts to join it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9001114/Syria-Arab-League-refuses-to-withdraw-observer-mission.html

Qatar's aim is not to bolster the monitoring effort, but rather to internationalize the Syrian conflict, and set the stage for Western intervention. Thankfully, the longer this goes on, the less likely that scenario is. Qatar can try to militarily intervene directly, as it did in Libya, but it would be a riskier proposition not backed by Western powers.

[vminfla]

4. No surprise

To acknowledge Syria's excesses is to admit the possibility that they, themselves, have or are planning to commit the same excesses.

[vminfla]

2. Doubt it

Last thing the Arab League wants is Western observers.