That Red Line

President Obama is talking today and tomorrow with leaders of the G8 group of countries, meeting in Northern Ireland. No doubt Syria in particular will be on his mind. 

Now that he is finally convinced that chemical weapons have been used against Syrians by the Assad regime (which for months Obama defined as a "red line"), and given his announcement late last week that America is prepared to do more, giving "military aid" to the Syrian rebels for the first time in the 27-month civil war, President Obama is likely to be especially interested in learning the nature of, and the extent to which, British Prime Minister Cameron and French President Hollande, both of whom have previously expressed strong desire to provide more help to the rebels, would like to be involved. He is also consulting with Vladimir Putin. Russia, which has a strategic interest in maintaining its only Mediterranean port - which is in Syria - has been supplying arms to the Syrian army through much of the conflict, and just last week Putin sharply criticized Obama's plan to ship weapons to rebel forces.

Already there are hints about how the Western leaders want to proceed. Prime Minister Cameron, who met Putin privately in London on Sunday, the day before the G8 summit began, issued a blunt assessment today. It seems the private Sunday meeting  didn't go all that well. Cameron noted that Russia must push the various Syrian factions to the negotiating table, not support a government that slaughters its citizens. Said Cameron: "The Syrian people must have a government that represents them, rather than a government that's trying to butcher them. We shouldn't accept that the only alternative to Assad is terrorism and violence. We should be on the side of Syrians who want a democratic and peaceful future for their country and one without the man who is currently using chemical weapons against them".

Whether Russia will support Cameron's call for peace talks will become evident this week. Such a u-turn is very unlikely. Indeed, there was an ominous sign over the weekend that further escalation of the Syrian conflict is the more probable development. Iran, Russia's proxy in the Middle East which all along has supported the Assad regime, announced that it will send 4,000 Iranian troops to Syria to fight with the Syrian army, joining Hizbullah forces (the Lebanese Shia party-cum-militia), likewise supported by Iran, already in the country. The Syrian, Sunni rebel forces may thus well need much more than just American/British/French-supplied light arms and CIA training on how to use them.

President Obama's prolonged shunning of American intervention in Syria would appear to be over. But what, and how much, to do next certainly continues to be debated intensely in Washington, with the legacy of Iraq still very much on the minds of many. All options are fraught with risk, in a context where a full-scale Sunni/Shia, Persian/Arab conflict involving many Middle East governments, including Israel, may now be developing in Syria. With 93,000 documented deaths(according to UN statistics) since the war began, at least 1.5 million Syrians having fled, with the country overrun by warring factions, and towns, cities and infrastructure in ruins, it is fair to ask if America and its allies have waited too long.