Turkey is complaining that the international community still isn't doing anything about the slaughter in Syria. Their foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, complained:
All red lines have been crossed but still the U.N. Security Council has not even been able to take a decision. This is a responsibility for the sides who still set these red lines and for all of us.
But why is Turkey waiting for the international community when Turkey is right there and has a military fully capable of at least advancing 20-30 miles into Syria to establish a rebel zone even if Turkey doesn't have the logistics to advance deeper without NATO help (or a good contractor with experience in logistics)?
Remember, over two years ago Turkey issued an ultimatum--by the same foreign minister--to Assad to stop killing his people. What happened to that demand? A demand that the foreign minister said was their "final word" on the subject, implying action would follow.
And why isn't Turkish credibility on the line like ours is?
President Obama may not like it, but we are the global leader. So what our president says and does is remembered even when others are forgotten because their power just isn't in our league.
UPDATE: Because we're not sure if 100,000 dead is a real trend yet:
President Barack Obama called the apparent gassing of hundreds of Syrian civilians a "big event of grave concern" but stressed on Friday that he would not rush to embroil Americans in a costly new war.
Not that I think we need to invade. But it wasn't so long ago that our president preened about his moral stature:
Yeah. We cannot stand idly by when innocent men and women face brutality and death at the hands of their own government. After a few weeks. But two years is cool.
Good grief. We don't need to deploy our military. There are rebels fighting Assad. Arm them and help them win--don't try that BS of trying to "level the playing field" to deploy John Kerry for some grand negotiations.
