"Diplomatic Stirrings on Syria," an unsigned editorial that appears in today's New York Times, is interesting in what it reveals about the confused and contradictory positions that the paper has staked out on the Syrian civil war. Calls for escalation (Bill Keller's embarrassingly superficial Monday column) are combined with warnings about those "who would lead the country unwisely into war"; Assad is accused of using chemical weapons without a word about Carla Del Ponte's Sunday bombshell that evidence of the use of nerve gas exists but it points to the rebels; Russia is blamed exclusively for the continuation of the conflict because of its support for Assad but not a word about the gulf states acting as quartermaster for Wahhabi jihadists threatening a region-wide Sunni-Shiite sectarian war.
As John Kerry makes phone calls in Rome in an attempt to organize his peace conference, Russia is planning a sale to Syria of advanced S-300 missile batteries, an obvious response to Israel's multiple unanswered bombing runs and warhawk agitation in the West for a no-fly zone. On the ground, Hezbollah fighters are proving superior to the rebels. All in all it's not going the Empire's way. What is cause for concern is that the West, unable and unwilling to acknowledge its limitations, will continue to pursue its confused and contradictory positions and make the war worse.
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