With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Doug Saunders: A Bloody History Repeating Itself in Syria?

Doug Saunders is a Canadian-British author and journalist.

Moscow is sending three warships to back the regime. Washington has made it known that the CIA is aiding the rebels. Talks aimed at a peace deal or surrender have broken down. And the United Nations Security Council is deadlocked by Russian and Chinese vetoes, raising the spectre of a long and ugly conflict.
 
That is Syria today, but it also happens to sound a lot like Kosovo in 1999. Then, as now, a bloody guerrilla struggle against the increasingly violent actions of a strongman leader became a symbolically loaded conflict of wills between the United States and Russia, and as a result the United Nations was unable to play any useful role.
 
After former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan resigned in frustration on Thursday as the UN-appointed negotiator between Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and opposition rebels, the comparisons to the Kosovo conflict became even more acute...
Read entire article at Globe & Mail (Canada)