Time for diplomatic sanctions on #Syria

In a brave and important move that has been as yet barely
acknowledged in the press in this country, the Libyan
Transitional National Council last week shut the Syrian
embassy in Tripoli down, and recognised the Syrian National
Council (which has recently unified virtually all the non-violent
anti-Assad Syrian Opposition behind its banner) as the
government-in-waiting of Syria.*

This is an exciting development, an intelligent move. It ought to
be copied by Britain.

For one of the things that the Syrian protesters now most want
(they mostly DON'T want foreign military intervention) is
precisely this: serious diplomatic sanctions against Syria, to
delegitimise the Assad regime in the eyes of the world. We

should support the Syrian democracy-protesters; we can easily give them what they want.

Let's close the Syrian embassy in Britain (unless it is prepared
to declare independence from its capital, as some Libyan embassies did
during the uprising there), and recognise the SNC as the only
legitimate government of Syria. Assad doesn't govern Syria any
more. He merely tries (and mostly, due to the extraordinary
bravery of the bulk of the people, fails) to terrorise it.

The great advantage of diplomatic sanctions moreover, besides being free, is that they won't hurt the "person in
the street" in Syria. This is a win-win.

 

To sum up: Imposing such diplomatic sanctions on Syria is the least that
this country can do, to back up the heroic Syrian democracy-
protesters.