French Foreign Minister Juppe Is about to Give President Obama Heartburn

Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have gone on yet another set of killing rampages this past weekend.

French media report:

- Five men and a woman were gunned down near Homs in the north.

- Machine gun firing can be heard all over this northern region as security forces close roads while they hunt down and kill or capture militants.

- Eight members of the al-Assad military defected and two were shot and killed, four were captured and two are still in hiding.

- Killings go on routinely in the north near Alep, in eastern Deir Essor and in other provincial towns.

- School started Sunday and in one school students demonstrated until security forces arrived and beat them, arresting some.

 - Friends of the military officer Hussein Harmouche, who was kidnapped from his refugee camp in Turkey, are calling for mass demonstrations in Damascus.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says that these killings are unacceptable and that even while Bashar al-Assad is promising he will stop the crackdown, his security forces continue their massacres.

And, perhaps much more significantly, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has said at the UN in New York that “the silence of the Security Council is unacceptable in the face of these crimes against humanity.”

“The Russians invoke the possibility that it is terrorists who are perpetrating violence against the al-Assad regime. We do not share this view of events which is blocking action by the Security Council,” added Mr. Juppe.

Why is Juppe’s statement so important? Because France has been the western power most active historically, continuing to today, in Syria and its region.

Like Libya, Syria remains close to France and so France’s broadside against Russia, and by association China, that they continue to stonewall Security Council action concerning Syria could mean that the UN is close to decisions much like those taken in Libya, where France was the first western power to explicitly call for intervention.

Alain Juppe is a savvy and respected statesman and his words have force in the international community.

If President Obama is once again pressured by France to join a coalition to save a country's citizens from mass murder at the hands of their own leadership, he will have to be very careful about framing his response in light of American opinion that the US should have stayed out of the Libyan coalition, and given the fact that he is trying to save money and avoid having to ask the Republican House of Representatives for anything, certainly including money for a Syrian incursion. But, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's comments about the al-Assad regime will not make it easy for Obama to opt out.

Stay tuned.