Syria Crisis: Annan Floats New Peace Plan Idea, Creation Of "Contact Group"

In february of this year the State Dept. began to quietly alert Syria's neighbors of it's stockpiles of different biological and chemical weapons, warning them about the possibility of Syria's WMDs crossing their borders and offering U.S. government help in dealing with the problem.

For concerned parties both inside and outside the U.S. government, the demarche signifies that the United States is increasingly developing plans to deal with the dangers of a post-Assad Syria -- while simultaneously highlighting the lack of planning for how to directly bring about Assad's downfall.

On May 31 debkafile alluded to a possiblity of the creation of a large force of 5,000 international monitors for Syria, most of them Russians, to safeguard Assad’s stock of biological and chemical weapons against falling into the hands of extremists.

(debkafile)

This team consisting of thousands of Russians troops would be the operational arm of the future “contact group.”

Now to get to the title of the thread I thought I'd highlight the article from debka because it used the words "contact group," as does the article below. If this lends credence to the post then we are looking at an international force of approximately 5000 "peacekeepers, which will be responsible for possibly seizing and guarding Syria's biological and chemical weapon stores.

Huffpost.com

Annan's proposal for the creation of a "contact group" of world and regional powers comes as the Syrian opposition and Western and Gulf nations seeking the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad increasingly see Annan's six-point peace plan as doomed due to the Syrian government's determination to use military force to crush an increasingly militarized opposition.

I had to throw this in there to lighten it up a bit,hopefully we aren't going for a repeat.



~ Daedal ~

Where have we heard the WMDs bit before? My gosh they are getting desperate. I would not be surprised if they sold their mothers to be able to attack Syria.

Originally posted by THE_PROFESSIONAL
Where have we heard the WMDs bit before? My gosh they are getting desperate. I would not be surprised if they sold their mothers to be able to attack Syria.

If indeed they do have these weapons then something assuredly needs to be done to prevent them from reaching extremist groups that can use them for their own purposes. And I'm pretty sure we know how that might turn out, especially considering what elements are running around inside the country.

If Russia does take the lead, if this is true, then I don't think Putin will be for dis-spelling Assad, also to note Iran will be one of the countries selected to offer it's influence to help initiate whatever peace process will ensue. I think bringing in other Arab nations along with Russia will fair far better for Syria's stability,(possibly) because any interference from the U.S. or NATO will only provoke more hostilities.

So bringing in regional powers associated with the internal politics of Syria with economic ties IMO is not a bad idea compared to an invasion or war by outside forces not from the Arab world.

reply to post by Daedal


I have heard rumors that Putin may not be on Assads side for long or is already leaving. This is unconfirmed, but I don't know who to trust these days with all the misinformation going all around...especially the western news outlets..

If it is going to take 5000 troops just to secure the weapons, how many will it take to secure the people? Every nation has weapons, it is just part of being a nation these days along with flags, anthems, governments and heaps of other stuff. I am not sure how many sites there are but would not expect many, 5 to 10 maybe. In a population with 20 Million that will decent into chaos and anarchy from the resulting democratically elected power vacuum, this does leave quite a lot unsecured.

On a positive note it is good to hear that the major powers can finally agree on something, but much more work needs to be done before any type of effective and responsible plan takes shape.