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Originally Posted by wookster
I would be in favor of UN troops (including Canadian) on the ground if they were given the means and the support to do the job. Unfortunately, history has proven that this will likely not happen as there will be too much politics involved.
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At this point, the UN is configured for a mission like Syria, the concept of peacekeeping where troops in Blue Berets stand bravely in the line of fire to protect civillians is foolish.
Make no mistake, if you put troops on the ground in Syria its an offensive mission to remove Assad's ability to make war on his people. You need massive amounts of ground forces, you need highly mobile armor units that can take the capital city, you need massive airpower to knock out Syrian armour and artillary sites.
Libya was a cake walk compared to what's happening here. Ghadaffi did not have a strong military at the time, and the opposition was fairly strong and benefitted from members of the military joining their cause in unit size. That's not happening in Syria where the opposition is on the verge of being exterminated.
And I can guarantee if the UN was to put the force on the ground that it need to do this mission, they're going to be viewed as conquerors rather then liberators and they're going to end up fighting not only the Assad government, but extremists on the other side.
Its more of a mission that is configured for a Nato force then a UN force.
I very much doubt that America wants to commit ground forces especially with the need to rest and rearm their military. I doubt that America wants to be caught in another 5 year tar baby engagement.
Canada just doesn't have anythng left to give, the Army needs a significant amount of time to rest retrain and repurchase equipment worn out in Afghanistan.
On top of that, if you look at the map Syria is bordered by Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon. Turkey might allow aircraft, but I doubt that they can politically allow UN troops to mass in Turkey for a cross border invasion. In Iraq your dealing with a new insurgency that started after America left, you'd probably get attacked and suicide bombed in Iraq, Lebanon is not a friendly nation especially with Hezbollah there. Plus Iran would squeal if 5000 Western troops for example were suddenly staged in the middle east.
I think your only option would be a sea bourne amphib assault, and the only nation capable of doing that in numbers would be the U.S. who would then have to bear the brunt on the early casualties to establish a beach head with supply lines for other UN countries to fly in troops and supplies.
And amphib assaults are always bloody, is the american public willing to watch their boys die in numbers again so quickly?