To follow the U.N.’s approach to the crisis in Syria is to be led through a ceaseless series of restatements of the agonizingly obvious and, in the end, to be little closer to seeing the end of that crisis than you were before the United Nations took what passes for action.
You can scarcely be faulted if you paid little heed to the fact that the U.N. once again has expressed alarm over the violent crackdown by Syrian President Bashar Assad against his own people. How often have we heard similar statements — all equally empty?
But apparently undaunted, envoy Kofi Annan, reporting to the U.N. Security Council, declared the situation in Syria “bleak.”
Really? What was his first clue? Thousands of dead Syrian civilians?
According to The Associated Press, Annan “expressed particular concern at media reports that government troops entered the central city of Hama on Monday after U.N. observers departed, firing automatic weapons and killing a significant number of people. ‘If confirmed, this is totally unacceptable and reprehensible,'” Annan said.