According to one of them, negotiations for the relocation of Assad and his party are on ongoing.
I think that it was Al Jazira who said that the top generals had to find a nice place to land, as well, because they'll be dead if left in Syria, and they're the ones with control of the weapons if Assad helicopters out.
I say, throw money at them. Syria is Russia's baby, but they'd want a long term lease on their Med port in Syria, Tarsus, I think. Somehow, the opposition, which may include Al Q, probably wouldn't go for it.
Would Venezuela take them?
Paraguay?
Maybe Argentina would do it for some debt forgiveness. Lovely climate I'm told, and the money would go a long way.
Substantive edit: I'm not working right now--I can get a temp job when I'm ready so it's not so bad. So I read around the net, and not always in nice places. I have serious concern that some of "Syrian" opposition are very serious Islamic radicals who are not going to play nice with the population once Assad is gone. They may treat women like the Taliban, and they may kill Christians and non-Sunnis.
The Turks, IMHO and it is a long story, are no longer secular, and who knows who they would support.
I'm afraid that Syria, or at least parts of it, will turn into another Afghanistan, where we get the bad guys out (this time Assad, that time the USSR), but our guys turn out to be even worse.
In my net wanderings, I have read that Susan Rice, Hilary Clinton and Samantha Power, filled with guilt from Rwanda, convinced Obama to go into Libya and overthrow Gadaffi as a humanitarian cause. I've posted about Rice here, and you can check out her Wiki. From memory, Hillary carries tremendous guilt about our failure to intervene in Rwanda, and Samantha Powers is a terrific advocate for human rights.
Nonetheless, even though we are a great power still in some ways, the whole world is not like Kansas, and even though our hearts are in the right place, there's not much we can do without causing even more problems. I thought that was the lesson we learned in such places as Vietnam, El Salvador and Afghanistan (maybe twice). Hillary should know that, Power may not have been living here then and Rice is too young for Vietnam and, I think, El Salvador. Nonetheless, guilt as the moving factor of foreign policy doesn't work, which is why I was doubtful about Clinton as SOS and one reason why I'm doubtful of Rice.
Reportedly, Gates, and I think Panetta and maybe others didn't want to go into Libya. Perhaps they did it because the Brits were asking and they've always said "yes" when we've asked. No comment on the French. No German boots in the sand, of course. (How long they can avoid combat because of their history, I don't know, but if they get any oil from this they should pay in gold).
I'm not saying that Gadaffi was a prize, but he had been cooperating with the west and selling the Europeans oil. Remember, Obama did not come up with this idea by himself. Remember, he didn't want to go to Iraq.
My personal view of what we were doing in Benghazi, which was not an embassy and not a consulate, was intelligence gathering and trying to get arms out of the hands of the guys that we had rented to take down Gaddafi. Either they were pure intelligence types, or had worked closely with them, which is why our wonderful Ambassador, the computer guy and the two ex-seals who died were in Benghazi and why no one is really talking sense about what happened in that place.
Meanwhile, weapons, maybe ours, maybe the Qataris are probably in Syria and may be used against Assad and against anyone else who is not with them. I fear, that whatever happens, we will have a nest of vipers in Syria, and we will have something to do with why they're there.
Anyway, I hope that no chemical weapons are used in Syria, and that it has a reasonable government. I'm not counting on it though, and I think that we may end up with another mess and blood on our hands. And for what. A Nobel? I think not.
Well, for what 2:00 am ramblings are worth.
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