The death of diplomacy

DIPLOMATS HAVE a gamut of tactics up their sleeves to get their job done. They flash charming smiles and chitchat amiably to cajole leaders into accepting their country’s demands.

And sometimes they even give stern warnings and bellicose threats to coerce them into yielding. But how does a diplomat persuade a tyrant who has been brutally massacring his own people for the sake of his own survival? There is no easy answer for this question, as veteran Algerian diplo- mat Lakhdar Brahimi is now finding out.

Brahimi replaced Kofi Annan as the UN envoy for Syria, but his hopes of resolving a difficult conflict are flagging just after a month of performing his duties. In an interview with BBC, he called his task “nearly impossible”. And the world can easily sympathise with the 78-year-old official, since his predecessor quit after also not being able to achieve a breakthrough in the Syrian crisis. Meanwhile, as the prospect of a diplomatic solution to Syria’s imbroglio takes an abysmal plunge, the civil war there rages on in full momentum. In the latest assault on the rat-tag cohort of rebels, a warplane killed 18 people in a single strike.

According to activists nearly 200,000 people have been killed since last year’s uprising and if the gory squabble continues unabated, bodies will continue to pile in Aleppo.

So when will the world realise that diplomats and envoys are not going to seal the deal with Bashar Al Assad? He has been given many opportunities to peacefully plan a transition in his country in collaboration with all the international power players.

However, his unyielding attitude and delaying tactics show that the international community needs to abandon diplomacy and use force against him. The intransigent despot needs to be violently overthrown from his seat of power.

Khaleej Times