Even More from Syria

The Security Council of the United Nations voted today 13-2 in favor of a resolution calling for an end to the violence in Syria, asking the Assad government which has killed many thousands of people to step aside and calling for elections to replace that government. Since the two negative votes came from Russia and China, however, the resolution was defeated, or more properly: vetoed. You may ask why Russia and China used the veto. Since Russia is Syria's biggest arm supplier and since Russia has its only naval base in the Mediterranean in Syria, Putin did not want to lose the Assad government, a reliable customer for Russian weapons. China cast a veto in order to gain favor with Iran, a country from which China wants to buy large quantities of oil. Iran is Syria's main ally, so siding with Syria lets China curry favor with Teheran.

I assume that the killing will continue apace in Syria until some countries decide that waiting for the UN to act is much like waiting for a 100 year rainstorm. You know it will happen once every hundred years, but you can never predict when, and in the rest of the years there is just a dry spell.