Originally Posted by
Courtney Mil
OAP,
Indeed, that's democracy happening in the West. I have no problem getting my head around that. It's the baffling Assad u-turn that interests me in this case.
Surely it is an example of force majeure or gun-boat diplomacy in action.
The difference today compared with the US previous stance is that diplomacy has been given time to work.
The original US stance was to fire a shot across his bow to enforce the diplomacy. What the UK vote against action achieved was to cause all the western players to draw breath and give more time.
This recognises of course that there are two different issues in play here. One is chemical weapons and the other is the civil war. It seems only the former is actually in play. The civil war is perhaps still being view as a very regrettable but internal matter.