What’s next for Syria? Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth comes to mind: “How fortunate we were who still had hope… I could not know how soon the time would come when we should have no more hope, and yet be unable to die.”

Brittain’s account of World War I is vivid, yet words can never describe what souls who have survived war know. People who know war must weep in outrage and sorrow when truly confronting what is next for Syria. In Syria there will be those who survive unimaginable horror and those who suffer cruel deaths. The survivors will spend the rest of shattered lives trying to navigate souls twisted and burned with the crimes against humanity committed by the Syria State.

Survival and re-building lives, however, are distant dreams for Syria because this past Saturday the so-called UN “Action Meeting” in Geneva failed to take any action to stop Assad’s slaughter. Alongside Vera Brittain’s, Richard Holbrooke’s ghost haunts me. How I wished he could have channeled into Saturday’s meeting. Holbrooke, President Clinton’s Peace Envoy for Bosnia, would have never let Saturday’s non-action happen.

In a 1998 Foreign Affairs review of Richard Holbrooke’s book To End a War: From Sarajevo to Dayton-and Beyond, Roger Cohen wrote that Holbrook’s achievement was “peace-by-tantrum.” Had Holbrooke had been in Geneva he would have had one huge, and much needed, tantrum. Cohen said that Holbrooke “unlike the mealy-mouthed majority, he had a memory.” And, I add, he wasn’t afraid to use it.

I was only 21 years old when the Balkan war started. I went on a fact-finding mission with a Member of the French Parliament. I wasn’t in Bosnia long but what I witnessed burns in memory. How could any of us forget? Wasn’t Bosnia part of our collective coming of age?

What bothered me most, as I watched the live press conference from Geneva this past Saturday, is the failure to remember. Hillary Clinton you were there in Bosnia. You even took Chelsea, your daughter, to support our troops and bear witness. Kofi Annan, veteran UN diplomat, you too were there. What happened to the Lessons of Srebrenica we were never suppose to forget, let alone repeat as we are now in Syria?

In 1999 the UN Secretary General released a staggering report called The Fall of Srebrenica. It is a brave and honest record of failures by the international community in Srebrenica and Zepa resulting in the slaughter of some 20,000 unarmed civilians and 117 UN Peacekeepers in Bosnia. The report sets out Srebrenica Lessons, never to be repeated. Today the Srebrenica Lessons appear to have been forgotten with the latest non-action in Geneva on Saturday proof of collective Srebrenica amnesia.

Six Srebrenica Lessons

What are the Srebrenica Lessons and why do they matter for Syria’s future? The Srebrenica Lessons can be summed up as this: moral judgments are imperative to recognize evil and take decisive action to stop evil by military force when necessary. The Srebrenica Lessons are essentially the embodiment of the concept no peace without justice. The report, over one-hundred pages, is dense with lessons-to-be-learned. Highlighted here are what I believe to be the six most important Srebrenica Lessons.

(1) Srebrenica Lesson: "The cardinal lesson of Srebrenica is that a deliberate and systematic attempt to terrorize, expel or murder an entire people must be met decisively with all necessary means …in Bosnia and in Kosovo, the international community tried to reach a negotiate settlement with an unscrupulous and murderous regime. In both instances it required the use of force to bring a halt to the planned and systematic killing and expulsion of civilians."

Syria: There is no such thing as negotiated “peace” with “an unscrupulous and murderous” leaders. On Saturday in Geneva the international community pretended to negotiate peace with a regime that is hell-bent on mass murder. Assad has demonstrated, over the course of a year, he has no intention of stopping the slaughter of his population. It is estimated that over 16,000 civilians have been killed by the state. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates over 100,000 people have fled with some 500 new refugees escaping Syria per day. Until decisive force is taken the murder and expulsion of civilians will continue in Syria as it did in Bosnia.

(2) Srebrenica Lesson: "Through error, misjudgment and an inability to recognize the scope of the evil confronting us, we failed to do our part to help save the people of Srebrenica from the Serb campaign of mass murder.”

Syria: The “scope of evil” is real and present in Syria. The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights (HCHR) reports that children are being intentionally targeted and killed by Assad’s forces. “They’ve gone for children-for whatever purposes-in large numbers. Hundreds detained and tortured… it’s just horrendous” says the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. On Saturday in Geneva the international community refused to recognize evil and take decisive forceful means to halt the evil so, in Syria, the slaughter of innocent children will continue.

(3) Srebrenica Lesson: “Srebrenica crystallized a truth understood only too late… that Bosnia was as much a moral cause as a military conflict. The tragedy of Srebrenica will haunt our history forever. … Evil exists in the world… the United Nations global commitment to ending conflict does not preclude moral judgments but makes them necessary."

Syria: Recognizing evil requires making moral judgments. Moral judgments are imperative when crimes against humanity are being waged by a state on its people. The international community must make a moral judgment on Syria in order to take the decision to use force to stop the evil that exists in Syria. This requires courage to recognize and call evil out instead of pretending to be “negotiating peace.” Russia is an accessory to Assad’s crimes of humanity. The international community must say so loudly and clearly. Absent the courage to make the necessary moral judgments, the false cover of “negotiating peace” only allows the scope of evil to grow in Syria as it did in Bosnia.

(4) Srebrenica Lesson: "When peacekeeping operations are used as a substitute for such political consensus they are likely to fail… …peacekeepers must never again be deployed into an environment in which there is no ceasefire or peace agreement.”

Syria: In Syria the UN deployed unarmed peacekeepers to "monitor" a non-existent ceasefire and a false peace-plan. These peacekeepers are now grounded in their hotels because conditions in Syria were deemed, by the UN, too dangerous for the unarmed peacekeepers.

(5) Srebrenica Lesson: "We tried to keep the peace and apply the rules of peacekeeping when there was no peace to keep” Measures taken by the UN "were poor substitutes for more decisive and forceful action to prevent the unfolding horror."

Syria: In Syria there is no peace to keep. Saturday’s Geneva meeting was a perfect example of desperately trying to put forward substitutes for decisive forceful action to stop the “unfolding horror” in Syria. There is no substitute for the now necessary NATO humanitarian-military intervention in Syria. America, under President Obama’s leadership, pretending that we are doing the right thing by “working with” the UN and Russia only renders us too an accomplice to the crimes of humanity in Syria.

(6) Srebrenica Lesson: "The only meaningful and lasting amends we can make to the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina who put their faith in the international community is to do our utmost not to allow such horrors to recur."

Syria: The international community not only failed Syria on Saturday in Geneva but re-failed the victims and survivors of Srebrenica and Bosnia; something we promised we would not do. The tragedy of Srebrenica, and now Syria, should haunt us all.

Peace-by-Tantrum

If the late Richard Holbrooke were here he would be having a righteous tantrum. Who will take his place? Vera Brittan wished that “the orators who talk so much… could see a case… of mustard gas in its early stages--could see the poor things burnt and blistered all over with great mustard-colored suppurating blisters, with blind eyes--sometimes temporally, sometimes permanently--all sticky and stuck together, and always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke.”

We can all watch the horror of Assad’s slaughter tweeted to the world as desperate SOS messages by brave men and women in Syria who are begging for our help. These tweeted videos show children’s bodies ripped apart by shrapnel from missiles and mortars aimed at them by Assad and provided by Russia. The “orators who talk so much” on Saturday in Geneva would have better prefaced their remarks with just one video tweeted from Syria of a child’s life, body and soul ripped to shreds by shrapnel.

Peace-by-tantrum and courage to call forth the Srebrenica Lessons was desperately needed in Geneva on Saturday. Moral judgments must now be made in order to commit force to halt the scope of evil in Syria. Who will throw the tantrum needed to save Syria? Who has a memory of Bosnia and Srebrenica and isn’t afraid to use it? Hope still lives but somewhere, somehow courageous leadership must emerge before the time “when we should have no more hope.” After Saturday’s Geneva meeting, that time draws too near for Syria.

There is no end in sight for the ongoing strife in Syria, regardless of whether ultimately we will see the overthrow of the authoritarian, ruthless and corrupt Assad regime or the regime's brutal suppression of the bulk of the opposition arrayed against it. Neither side appears able to move decisively against the other. Nonetheless, meaningful foreign military intervention remains highly unlikely.

In the face of a regime determined to kill many thousands more Syrians and continue to ravage population centers to crush the opposition as well as a sizeable opposition still unbowed by the carnage visited upon it, the international community has flailed ineffectively in its efforts to end the violence. Indeed, UN observers who typically are meant to be little more than peacekeepers cannot have much impact on a still fluid, violent situation in in which there is precious little peace to keep. Moreover, any serious armed intervention against perhaps the Arab world's most powerful military would be vastly more demanding than what was required in the Libyan case--probably too daunting militarily, politically and financially for those governments that might have given this option any consideration at all.

There is, of course, widespread unhappiness with the refusal of Russia and China to allow the UN to take tougher measures aimed at curbing Syrian government violence. Moscow also reportedly is continuing some assistance to the Syrian military. The Russians have equities associated with the current regime they are trying to protect, objects to potential growth in "Western" influence in the region, and fears a possible takeover by Islamic militants. Yet, despite the intense focus on the Russians in all this, the real "action" would likely remain on the ground inside Syria even if Moscow gave way.

Despite calls to arm the opposition, arms and other supplies already have been flowing into Syria for the resistance in growing amounts. Amidst calls for NATO countries to arm the opposition more openly, covert efforts to do so clearly have begun (most likely on the part of some regional countries and wealthy Muslim donors). But even if ramped up still further, this flow cannot provide the opposition with a significant edge, at least at this stage of the struggle, because so far anti-regime forces have attracted only relatively small numbers of Syrian army deserters, while major military units remain either supportive of the regime or unwilling to throw their lot in with its enemies.

Theoretically, in sectarian terms, the opposition's most promising recruiting ground--Syria's majority Sunni population--heavily outnumbers the regime's Alawite base. However, in reality, over the 40-plus years of Assad family rule, many Sunnis have grown close to the regime because of commercial advantages, perks associated with military or government service, etc. And particularly in more cosmopolitan urban centers like Damascus, more secular and prosperous Sunnis fear militant Islamic elements within the opposition--recalling the violence linked to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood's challenge to the regime 30 years ago.

So, sadly, the way things stand now, both sides have the capacity and determination to sustain formidable efforts. As a result, without a substantial tectonic shift inside Syria itself in favor of one side or the other, the horrifying spectacle of widespread government violence and destruction pitted against fierce opposition resistance is likely to drag on for quite some time.

I would have thought that the resumption of traditional forms of governance in Egypt and the present chaos in Libya would have served to discourage neo-Wilsonians in their starry eyed desire to "engineer" a new Middle East, but the recent statements from the State Department indicate that the hope for miracles still endures. We all would love to see "good government" arrive on the scene in Syria. Such a splendid development seems unlikely for several reasons.

What is ongoing in Syria is not simply a matter of removing Bashar Assad from power. He heads one side of a "national" split in the population that aligns most of the Sunni Arab population against most of the Alawi, the Shia,the Christians and Sunni business groups in Syria. The opposition began as a movement led by semi-westernised liberals. It has steadily evolved toward becoming a movement of Sunni Islamists in which the liberals are more or less "along for the ride." (for now) It is clear that the most of the Syrian armed forces will "stick with" the present government. Their ethno-religious interests lie in doing so. There are also armed Alawi and Shia militias who will commit excesses on behalf of the government that Damascus might desire but might shrink from in direct action.

Thus far, the "resistance" has not demonstrated much military talent. Training and equipping might change that. There is money available from various Sunni sources, principally in Saudi Arabia. Equipment can always be found when major power sponsorship is present as in this case. Nevertheless, the notion that one might create an army of the resistance that could challenge the Syrian armed forces on a conventional battlefield is a "pipe-dream." It takes decades to create real armed forces. Have we not learned that truth yet again in the last decade? Are the new Iraqi forces ready to fight anyone? No, they are not. What could be done in Syria would be to create guerrilla resistance, subversion and political warfare that might eventually bring down the present government. Is direct conventional intervention by a major regional or world power a real possibility? This is essentially a political question on a grand scale. I think such a thing is not possible unless the situation develops towards the total destruction of the resistance and the US then "buys" the acquiescence of Russia in some fashion. Might Turkey eventually intervene? The prospect fills Arabs with nostalgic horror. Turkey's intervention with its massive ground forces seems a "long shot."

For the sake of debate let us assume that what used to be called a campaign of Unconventional Warfare involving guerrilla war, subversion and political action might succeed in the end. What would that produce? The insurgents look to be people who would not be friends of the West if they governed. In Egypt, the "Arab Spring" of popular imagination and media generation has resolved itself into a contest between Islamists and more or less secular Egyptian society under the officer class that has ruled for 60 years. In Iraq, a Shia run government of thinly disguised zealots rules after having been installed with the protection of American arms. In Afghanistan, we flounder in a morass of COIN ambitions among people who scorn our dreams and look to find "Ali Baba"and his magic cave filled with wealth. Many have found it in Dubai.

Syria? We do not rule the world. Let us remember that.