Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the French news agency Friday that fighting between Syrian army defectors and the government runs "a risk of transforming into civil war." He also said the elevated tensions make now the "right time" to stop the massacre.
Davutoglu's warning comes just one day after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters an attack by the Free Syrian Army on a Syrian military base this week was "very much like a civil war."
Russia stands with Assad. Is Turkey doing so, too, by warning of civil war? Or are they raising this possibility to justify intervention?
But an intervention based on establishing humanitarian safety zone enclaves along the border would tend to spark a civil war rather than smother it.
Preventing a civil war requires either the Russian solution of supporting Assad so he can put down the revolt and demonstrations--or invading and marching on Damascus to impose a new government as quickly as possible. Not that supporting either the existing or a new regime guarantees no civil war. But by supporting neither you increase the odds of civil war.
And given Syria's ballistic missile arsenal and poison gas stocks, I just don't think Turkey could risk a regime change invasion.
What am I missing here?
