I am aware that the Syrian situation is horrendously complex and the default for most countries is keep out of it and hope to hell it will all settle down.


But I keep hearing about the battle to kick ISIS out of Fallujah where around 50,000 long suffering, mostly non combatant residents, are starving, being killed, used as human shields and prevented from leaving the wrecked city where help and shelter is just a few miles away.


The Iraqi army is doing its best but it is a very difficult job as ISIS embed themselves within the residents whilst the yanks bomb anything that moves.


There doesn't seem to be a good outcome for the 50,000 or so poor sods left so is it time for the UN to get to grips with the situation and send in an eclectic army of UN members and get ISIS out. and start the long rebuilding process? I wouldn't think a UN decision would be vetoed as USA and Russia would support it.


Too big a risk?


David

 

UN troops are mostly useless, especially in a so-called peace keeping role where they usually stand by and do absolutely nothing while all hell is breaking loose around them.

Whatever the root causes it's now an Iraq problem to sort out and they will be all the stronger for doing it without outside interferrence.

 

+1

 

+2 having worked with the UN. They could give FIFA a few tips.

 

Agreed, except we / Billy liar went in there to install democracy originally, so


Would Isis be there at all if we'd stayed at home ?

 

OK I mostly agree with comments about UN peace keepers but doesn't UN also have a mandate to ask its members to contribute forces and send in troops? UK, France, Germany etc. Tough I know but surely there is a common duty to try and save 50,000 fellow UN members? David

 

1. Fallujah is in Iraq, not Syria.
2. It's highly doubtful any move to sanction force wouldn't be vetoed in the Security Council.
3. Even if it wasn't, it would still need participant countries to volunteer sending their troops there. The UN can ask all it wants, noone has to agree to do it. The US certainly won't want to play, and I doubt others will be queuing up to either.
4. It would also require the invitation of the Iraqi government, unless said UN motion was declaring the place a failed-state, which I suspect might p!ss the Iraqis off a bit.

I could go on, but by the time I'd finished I expect all the fighting in Fallujah would be over already ...

 

Stupid me for inputting Syria, my apologies. But who would veto? Russians want ISIS gone and USA already have quite a few troops there as "advisers" although current Obama softly softly approach wouldn't help. Surely Iraq might approve as its their troops now being slaughtered? You are right that Europeans would be extremely reluctant to join in but you never know. David

 

Point 4 makes any UN agreement moot.

I guess the wider question should be about defeating ISIS. Do we want to beat them or not?

If the answer is yes, then you need to starting thinking about how we could achieve that.
One thing that is pretty clear is that we're not going to do that from 30,000 feet.

 

The Iraqi army is midway through their assault on Fallujah right now, whereas anyone not living in a complete fantasy world knows even in a best-case scenario, it would take months for the UN to come to a resolution on sending in troops, and for participating countries to actually deploy those troops on the ground.

 

Yep, agreed, there's no way that the UN can react quickly enough to deal with this situation.

I'd like to see a more joined up Western strategy for dealing with these *******s though.

 

There are hundreds of UK soldiers in Iraq as part of Short Term Training Teams sanctioned by the UN and invited in by the Iraqi government.

There are over 1000 UK soldiers deployed to or near Kabul as mentor/training staff to the Afghan Military Academy, again sanctioned by the UN.