In Damascus, Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Mekdad said Thursday that Syrian officials were “looking forward” to working with Brahimi.

Brahimi’s long diplomatic career has taken him to several Arab and Islamic countries, including Lebanon, where he helped negotiate the end of that country’s civil war as an Arab League envoy. After serving as Algeria’s foreign minister, he worked for the U.N. in countries such as Haiti, Yemen, Sudan and South Africa before he retired in 2005.

On Sunday, Brahimi told The Associated Press that his first task will be to overcome the divisions in the Security Council that undermined Annan’s efforts. Russia and China have used their veto power three times to block strong Western- and Arab-backed action against President Bashar Assad’s regime that could have led to sanctions.

Brahimi said the Security Council must speak “with a unified voice” in order for his mission to succeed. He said Annan’s mission failed “because the international community was not as supportive as he needed them to be.”

He said military intervention “is not supported by anybody.”

“I’m a peacemaker. By definition, if I start speaking about military intervention, that is recognizing a failure, not a personal failure but a failure of the peace process,” Brahimi said.

France, however, signaled Thursday that it was prepared to take part in enforcing a partial no-fly zone over Syria, as Assad’s embattled regime expands a major offensive against rebels in Damascus and surrounding areas.

Romney open to sending us troops to Syria to prevent spread of chemical weapons

The Washington Post By Associated Press, Published: August 25

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Mitt Romney says he’s willing to send U.S. troops to Syria if needed to prevent the spread of chemical weapons.

The Republican presidential contender tells CBS News that the United States must take “whatever action is necessary” to ensure weapons of mass destruction don’t fall into the wrong hands.

Romney says that may require ground troops or action by American allies such as Turkey or Saudi Arabia.

The former Massachusetts governor has limited foreign policy experience, but has so far outlined aggressive positions on potential threats.

He tells CBS that he would also support military action to prevent Iran from “becoming nuclear” or providing fissile material to Hezbollah. Romney says a nuclear Iran is unacceptable and could allow America’s enemies to attack the United States.

Syria’s escalating slaughter

The Washington Post By Editorial Board, Tuesday, August 28, 8:34 AM

EVIDENCE IS emerging of yet another horrific massacre by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, this time in the suburbs of Damascus. According to opposition sources, at least 300 people were slaughtered in the town of Daraya late last week. Videos posted on the Internet showed rows of bodies of young men and some children who had been shot in the head, execution-style.

The newest war crime, like those before it, reflects a deliberate strategy. As the Post’s Liz Sly has reported, the Assad regime is seeking to regain control over opposition-held areas by teaching their residents that harboring the rebels will be punished with mass murder. In Daraya, opposition accounts said, government soldiers first drove the forces of the Free Syrian Army from the town with artillery and air attacks, then went house-to-house, rounding up people and shooting them in groups.

It’s no wonder that civilians are fleeing Syria at a greater rate than ever. More than 200,000 have now arrived in neighboring countries, and some 10,000 were reported to be waiting Monday on the border of Turkey, which is already harboring 80,000 refugees. Turkish authorities are scrambling to prepare new refu­gee camps but say they cannot accommodate more than 100,000 — a number that could be reached within days.

The mounting massacres and refugee flows are rendering the Obama administration’s stubborn stance of passivity on Syria unsustainable. As soon as Thursday, the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a member of NATO, may ask the U.N. Security Council to authorize a safe zone for refugees inside Syria. While that is likely to be resisted by Russia, the United States would be foolish to continue standing by while allies such as Turkey and Jordan are swamped, and possibly destabilized, by Syrian refugees. Even more reprehensible is refusing to intervene while a state systematically murders its own citizens.

Mr. Obama has said that that “preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States of America.” In a speech at the Holocaust Museum in April, he said that “we need to be doing everything we can to prevent and respond to these kinds of atrocities — because national sovereignty is never a license to slaughter your people.” Yet now, as atrocity after atrocity is recorded in Syria, he rejects proposals by aides and allies for even limited and humanitarian intervention. Administration officials reportedly have discussed options for a safe zone, but the president has repeatedly sided with those favoring inaction.

Last week President Obama did say that his “calculus” about “military engagement” would change if the regime began using or deploying its stocks of chemical weapons. But as the Syrian blogger Ammar Abdulhamid has written, the drawing of that red line may have emboldened the regime to conclude that anything short of using weapons of mass destruction will be tolerated by Washington.

Mr. Abdulhamid wonders “why slaughter would be deemed tolerable if it happened one way and not another.” It’s a good question — and one for which the administration’s morally bankrupt policy has no answer.