LONDON – It will take more than the ongoing bombing campaign to end the atrocities of the Islamic State (ISIS), said former UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, adding that a genuine commitment by neighboring countries is needed.“A comprehensive resolution of the conflict is urgently needed,” Brahimi wrote in an opinion article published on Project Syndicate last Friday. “But this will be possible only if the main regional players – Iran, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – work with the international community to generate the political will to act.”
“Unfortunately, there are few signs that such cooperation will happen anytime soon,” he said.
Brahimi said he believes that the international community looked far too long as the Syrian civil war spiraled out of control and claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people and displaced more than 3 million, while admitting that his own efforts as the UN special envoy to Syria to bring all the warring parties to the negotiation also failed.