A golden opportunity lies untapped to force Islamists caught in Idlib to abandon their extremist ideas in return for their lives. Your life or your Islamism?
What if the United States sends this message to the 30,000 Islamist fighters in Idlib to abandon loyalty to al-Qaida or Nusra or ISIS in return for a No-Fly-Zone to protect the Idlib Province from a final assault by Assad, Putin, and Khamenei? One whose real purpose is to protect the three million civilians and to insure the Assad regime remains unstable and wobbly as long as Assad pursues terror against the region.
A No-Fly Zone over Idlib, maybe couple of countries in the Gulf would be willing to foot its bill, would also limit Iranian expansionism and the danger they pose to our allies. Until the Iranian people boot the Ayatollahs.
Practicality, please?
Good idea, but is it practical? How can you insure total abandonment of extremism once the plan is implemented? Or, how long it would take and at what risks? Further, how can you spin it to stop extremism without going to war?
The EU may get on-board with this plan to mitigate any risks for another Syrian refugee crisis that helps Putin.
Do you send the fighters to other countries for re-programming?
Or, do you monitor such re-programming through the work of specialized NGO’s to deploy in the Idlib Province?
Many, in the West, would like to see these Islamists dead and gone.
But what if the plan, indirectly, uproots al-Qaeda and ISIS ideologies as they both struggle to find Anti-American justification? Would that be a bad thing? After all, America is helping Syrian civilians now.
Such a plan would save the innocent from death, would spare Europe another Syrian exodus, and would clip the wings of Putin and Khamenei. It would usher the United States back into Syria with one swift move.
Would President Trump agree to such a concept even though every fiber of his body stands against grandstanding America’s greatness for those who don’t matter.
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