"The Obama administration, dismayed by the escalating violence in Syria and the blocking of tougher action against the Syrian government by Russia and China over the weekend, vowed Sunday to “redouble efforts” to push President Bashar al-Assad out of power.
Doing so without the force of a United Nations Security Council resolution, though, could mean having to look the other way as other countries arm the Syrian opposition, providing a recipe for all-out civil war, some Syria experts said.
On Sunday, the Obama administration sought to get beyond the veto by Russia and China a day earlier of a Security Council resolution backing an Arab League plan for a political settlement in Syria. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the veto a “travesty.”
Mrs. Clinton, in remarks on Sunday in Sofia, Bulgaria, placed the blame for the deteriorating situation squarely on Russia and China. “Those countries that refuse to support the Arab League plan bear full responsibility for protecting the brutal regime in Damascus,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And it is tragic that after all the work that the Security Council did, they had a 13-2 vote.”
But even as Mrs. Clinton and other administration officials promised to increase their efforts to stop the Syrian government from getting additional weapons and cracking down on protesters, some Syria experts suggested that the United States may have to go further. At the very least, it may have to give tacit approval to the arming of the Syrian opposition.
Such a move could lead to civil war. But it could also set the stage for a potential proxy war in a volatile region, as the United States and its allies in Europe and the gulf back the Syrian opposition against Mr. Assad, whose government is backed by Iran and Russia.
“There’s a little bit of Afghanistan here,” said Robert Malley, program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, referring to the 1980s fight of the American-backed mujahedeen fighters who resisted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/world/middleeast/obama-administration-continues-push-for-change-in-syria.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22
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