Syrian Crisis Solution: Britain Suggests Safe Exit for Assad

AMER HILABI/AFP/Getty Images

Syrian Crisis Solution: Britain Suggests Safe Exit for Assad

British Prime Minister David Cameron has floated the idea of a safe exit, with possible immunity from prosecution, for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad.

In an interview on Tuesday with Al-Arabiya television in the United Arab Emirates, the British premier responded in a desperate tone to a question on what to do if Assad asked for a safe exit: “Done. Anything, anything to get that man out of the country and to have a safe transition in Syria.” Even though Cameron still would “favor [Assad] facing the full force of international law and justice for what he’s done,” the prime minister has indicated clear support for an arranged exit. “I am certainly not offering him an exit plan to Britain,” Cameron said, “but if he wants to leave, he could leave. That could be arranged.”

Prime Minister Cameron has been on a tour of the Middle East. He lamented, “I am very frustrated that we can’t do more. This is an appalling slaughter that is taking place in our world today—40,000 lives lost already, and you can see on your television screens, night after night, helicopters, airplanes belonging to the Assad regime pounding his own country and murdering his own people.”

The solution-defying Syrian crisis is now in its 20th month and has recorded over 32,000 deaths. More than two people are being killed every hour in Syria. Reuters noted that “for all their firepower, Assad’s forces seem no closer to crushing their lightly armed opponents, who in turn have so far proved unable to topple the Syrian leader.”

Pro-Assad Russia and China have vetoed three draft resolutions of the United Nations Security Council that were anti-Assad. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has denounced the Syrian opposition’s precondition for talks on Assad stepping down as a desire for a “bloodbath.” On the other hand, anti-Assad rebels now claim control of most of Syria and have since moved their command center from Turkey to the areas they have liberated in Syria. Even though Assad’s enemies have failed to unite, making it complicated for the international community to support or arm them, these factions are meeting in Qatar to “forge a common front between civilians and rebels, Islamists and secularists, as well as groups outside and inside Syria” (Reuters, November 6).

In spite of the apparent strengths of pro-Assad forces, and the fractured nature of anti-Assad forces, the Syrian president’s days in power appear numbered.

Back in 1996, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry said the Bible indicated that there would be a drastic change in Syria’s political orientation. He said a prophecy in Psalm 83 showed how the Middle East was to split into two opposing power blocs—and that Syria and Iran would be on opposite sides. As Gerald Flurry predicted, it’s only a matter of time until “Syria will no longer align with Iran.” For more information on this critical Bible prophecy, read “How the Syrian Crisis Will End.”

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