"Fund Syria's Moderates" by Robin Yassin-Kassab

Excellent post by the fantastic Robin Yassin-Kassab:

"It's too late to avoid the militarization of the conflict or to prevent the sidelining of non-armed groups," Lynch writes. While this statement is entirely true, it fails to take account of the enormous and continuing disparity between the sides. Not only is the regime far better armed and organized than the resistance militias, it is also by far the most destructive force in the country, by far the greater killer of civilians. At this point, it's not unusual for 1,000 civilians to be killed in a week. Bombs are not dropped on bread lines or petrol queues as a battle tactic, but to murder, terrorize, and demoralize the unarmed population.

The fact of the matter is the Syrian rebels are not being armed as much as the leftist fantasists supporting Assad claim them to be. If they had, Assad would now be out of power and, in all likelihood, dead. There is something to be said for the self-fulfilling prophecy of Islamic fanaticism emerging there: dither about doing something because of a fear of Islamists, and in doing so allow the conditions that enable Islamists to prosper, justifying the dithering at the start.

I think what is remarkable is how the FSA has begged, borrowed, bought and stolen the weapons it needs to fight the regime. In spite of the many mistakes carried out in its name, the FSA emerged and remains largely in response to the overwhelming brutality of the regime and its killing machine. The only effective foreign intervention of any type has been Iran and Russia's supply and support for Assad, and this has kept this dying regime afloat for as long as it has. As Robin says, the Syrians are not going to stop fighting this regime, and the Syrian National Coalition has already been recognised by over 130 countries world wide. It is time for the world to do something, anything, rather than finger point and pontificate.