Syria Back to the Future (Guardian)

– “For the second time in four months, the UN commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, has urged the security council to refer Syria to the international criminal court for investigation. The first time, in August, the estimated civilian death toll from Syria’s crackdown on what started as peaceful unarmed protests stood at 2,000. Yesterday Ms Pillay estimated the death toll at over 5,000, and called the situation intolerable. Syria said her report was not objective because it relied on the testimony of defectors, and yet concrete evidence of shoot-to-kill orders is mounting. Tomorrow Human Rights Watch will publish a detailed investigation naming 74 commanders who told their soldiers to fire on unarmed protesters.

The issue is not only what is happening inside Syria, but where this is leading. Russia and China remain implacably opposed to a UN security council referral to the ICC, arguing that the same process was abused as a cover for regime change in Libya. Russia has gone further, supplying Syria with cruise missiles and announcing the deployment of an aircraft- carrying missile cruiser and two support ships to prevent a blockade. But they are not alone. Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has warned of the snowball effects of a sectarian war in Syria, and has refused to demand the ousting of Bashar al-Assad.”

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