ICG’s Joost Hiltermann laments letting Syria war go on too long ; Forgets 2011 “Slow-motion Suicide” report

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  • ICG’s Joost Hiltermann laments letting Syria war go on too long; Forgets 2011 “Slow-motion Suicide” report | The Mideastwire Blog
    https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/04/25/icgs-joost-hiltermann-laments-letting-syria-war-go-on-too-lon

    Anne Barnard quotes Crisis Group’s Joost Hiltermann in her recent piece on Syria as saying: “We’ve thrown values by the wayside, but also not been able to act in our own interests, because we let things go too long,” said Joost Hiltermann, a Dutch citizen who is the Middle East director for the International Crisis Group…”

    Unfortunately there is no reference to Crisis Group’s key, 2011 report entitled “The Syrian Regime’s Slow-motion Suicide” (imagine, this was the title in the early months of the revolt) which helped prepare the ground for precisely that which Joost is now lamenting.

    Indeed, the Slow-motion Suicide report, authored by Peter Harling, staked out a morally and strategically deficient vision of the gathering Syria conflict (especially for a conflict mitigation NGO) – saying there was little the international community could do.. in the summer of 2011. This position ultimately paved the way for Noah Bonsey’s 2015 Crisis Group report calling for an acceleration of the armed conflict through US military-led intervention.

    I wrote about both of these turns by ICG in 2015, but also wrote a NY Times op-ed along similar lines in February 2012 where I specifically took out reference to Crisis Group after a series of back and forth discussions with Rob Malley and Peter. By 2015, however, in my view ICG needed to come in for specific criticism.

    #Syrie #incohérence #experts #ICG #ONG