Turkey’s Leaders are Hypocrites

On Friday, Turkey called for international intervention to deal with the unmitigated assault that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is unleashing against his own people. According to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu:

“‘We are talking about what should be done today,’ said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, in Washington for consultations with the Obama administration. His visit is part of an international effort to organize an effective response to the Syrian carnage after the veto of a United Nations resolution last week calling on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step aside…

Assad, he said, is ‘now fighting against his own people. This cannot be tolerated. We cannot wait and see like Sarajevo,’ the Bosnian capital where Serbian forces rained artillery on civilians while the international community hesitated to intervene.’”

I have an idea. Since it will take some time to pull together an international coalition to invade Syria, an initiative that will be met with violence by the Assad regime and could result in more civilian casualties and the deaths of Syrian forces and potentially coalition troops as well, Turkey’s leaders can take unilateral action by orchestrating a flotilla to Syria like the one they sent to Gaza. They already know how to do it. All they need to do is take the blueprint off the shelf and implement it.

I’m not making light of a terrible situation that is rapidly spiraling out of control and costing untold numbers of innocent lives, and I’m not suggesting that Western countries should do nothing to combat Assad’s brutality. I’m simply pointing out that Turkey’s leaders are hypocrites. They were fully committed to embarrassing Israel by attempting to run the Gaza blockade even though the people of Gaza don’t face any danger from Israel unless they are Islamist members of Hamas who routinely fire rockets and mortars into Israel. Turkish citizens should pay attention to their leaders’ hypocrisy, and so should peace loving people around the world.