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Senator John McCain may be cranking up the political heat on the Obama Administration over Syria amid reports of a new massacre at Hama , but don't expect Secretary of State Hillary Clinton toberate Kofi Annan over the failure of his peace plan when she meetsthe U.N. special envoy in Washington on Friday. Clinton knows better than the pundits and politicians bashingAnnan that his mission is not an obstacle to more decisive action it's a product of the limited leverage and poor optionsavailable to Western powers to bring about regime change in Syria.The Administration is sticking with Annan's failing planbecause the alternatives seem even worse. Still, it's also asafe bet that Clinton won't like the special envoy'smessage about what needs to be done to implement a viablenegotiated solution. Annan is more acutely aware than any of his critics why neitherSyria's regime nor its opponents have implemented the six-point peace plan to which they signed on in April . There's no real "or else" option becausethe Western powers are unable or unwilling to go to war in Syria.The fact that Russia and China will block any U.N. authorizationfor foreign military intervention provides a convenient excuse foravoiding military action, but that camouflages a deeperapprehension among Western powers about being sucked into a potential quagmire in the Levant . ( MORE: Talking to Iran About Syria ) Annan's mission, then, wasn't to deliver ultimatums toSyrian leader Bashar al-Assad, but to find ways to bridge the vastchasm between the Western and Arab powers aligned withSyria's opposition, and those like Russia, China and Iraneither actively or passively backing the regime. And despite therhetoric in Washington, it ought to be noted that the StateDepartment sharply criticized the recent announcement by the rebelFree Syrian Army that it would no longer abide by Annan'scease-fire plan. Still overwhelmingly outgunned by the regime, therebels appear to be hoping that, sooner or later, the regime willunleash a bloodbath so appalling, it will force Western governmentsto use their own military power to finish off Assad. That'san expectation the U.S. is clearly seeking to discourage. The focus of recent U.S. and European diplomatic exertions has beenon cajoling Russia into abandoning Assad, but those have thus farproved fruitless. Although the optimistic spin in Washington onceagain holds that Russia can be pressed to break with Assad,it's hard to detect any substantive shift in Moscow'sposition despite its reiteration that the Syrian leader is notpersonally indispensable. "We have never said or insistedthat al-Assad necessarily had to remain in power at the end of thepolitical process," Russia's deputy foreign ministerGennady Gatilov said Tuesday. "This issue has to be settledby the Syrians themselves." This is not a new position. Itleaves Assad in charge of the country at the beginning of such aprocess a position accepted by the Obama Administration,which sees his ouster as an endpoint rather than a precondition.But Russia blames the opposition and its foreign backers for thefailure of the political process to get off the ground. ( MORE : How Can a Sectarian Civil War Be Stopped? ) And while much of the Western diplomatic focus has been on Russia,Iran's support is even more essential to Assad, leading someanalysts and the U.N. envoy himself to suggest that Tehran be drawn into negotiations over Syria . Annan is reportedly proposing the creation of a"contact group" on the Syria crisis comprising theU.S., Britain, France, Russia, China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia,possibly Qatar and Iran. The purpose of this group, accordingto The Washington Post ‘s David Ignatius , would be to assemble all of the outside stakeholders withinfluence over the conflict on the ground and have them agree on atransition plan. Such an accord would specify timelines forconstitutional changes and the holding of new elections and providefor Assad's retreat into exile. Such an agreement among all the key outside stakeholders wouldleave both the regime and opposition with little room for evasion.Russia, perhaps for its own reasons, seems to embrace the idea ofbroadening the discussion, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrovcalling Wednesday for a meeting along the lines of the"contact group" idea in a bid to save Annan'speace plan. But the idea of drawing Iran into talks on Syriasticks in the craw of many in Washington who view the Syrian crisis as primarily an opportunity to weakenIran , and therefore seek a more aggressive regime-changeintervention. Clinton balked at Lavrov's call for a meeting involving Iran, tellingreporters in Azerbaijan on Wednesday that it was "a littlehard to imagine inviting a country that is stage-managing Assadregime's assault on its people." Of course, if Syria is to be approached as part of a strategic"great game" rivalry with Iran, then Annan'sdiplomatic efforts are, indeed, pointless as are U.S. effortsto lobby Moscow and Beijing to change sides, since their ownstrategic outlook obliges them to oppose Western efforts at regimechange in the Arab world. To the extent that responses to the Syriacrisis are shaped by a regional strategy to weaken and isolateIran, there may be no way around a protracted civil war with manyof the region's key players backing their own proxies, someeven intervening directly. The reason for adopting Annan's diplomatic process was theWestern powers' reluctance to intervene directly, and theirrecognition of the danger to regional security posed by anescalating civil war. That logic hasn't changed even ifAnnan's work has yet to produce results. But the U.N. envoyappears to be suggesting that the logic of diplomacy, and gettingresults, forces some uncomfortable choices not only on Moscow andBeijing, but also on the Western powers. MORE: Why Are So Many Syrians Willing to Kill for the Assad Regime?. I am an expert from woodpellet-machine.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Feed Milling Machine Manufacturer , Biomass Pellets Machine, Feed Mixing Machine,and more.
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