New Syria envoy: task “nearly impossible”

The international community’s new Syria envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, is lowering expectations for what he can achieve. Via BBC: Mr Brahimi, the new UN-Arab League envoy on Syria, was appointed after his predecessor, Kofi Annan, resigned, saying he no longer saw a way to fulfil his mission after his peace plan failed to achieve a meaningful ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

The international community's new Syria envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, is lowering expectations for what he can achieve. Via BBC:

The international community’s new Syria envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, is lowering expectations for what he can achieve. Via BBC:

Mr Brahimi, the new UN-Arab League envoy on Syria, was appointed after his predecessor, Kofi Annan, resigned, saying he no longer saw a way to fulfil his mission after his peace plan failed to achieve a meaningful ceasefire.

"I’m coming into this job with my eyes open, and no illusions," Mr Brahimi told the BBC’s Lyse Doucet in an interview in New York. "I know how difficult it is – how nearly impossible. I can’t say impossible – [it is] nearly impossible.

Mr Brahimi said he had so far failed to see "any cracks" in the "brick wall" that had defeated Mr Annan – an "intransigent" Syrian government, escalating rebel violence and a paralysed UN Security Council, where China and Russia have vetoed several resolutions aimed at putting pressure on Damascus.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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