The United States Can Stop a Looming Catastrophe for 3 Million Syrians by Michael O'Hanlon and Steven Heydemann – Washington Post
As government forces close in on Idlib province in northern Syria, a catastrophe looms for the roughly 3 million Syrians living there. President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian backers are determined to assault the last remaining enclave of resistance to his regime. If the past is any guide, it will be horrible. Already, the regime has launched dozens of airstrikes, which have killed civilians. A Monday agreement between Russia and Turkey appears to create a safe zone in Idlib — but only in the rather unlikely event that it holds, and even then only in a limited geographic space, for a modest fraction of the region’s population.
The United States must take a stand. We can’t reverse the course of the war, but we can at least take action to ensure that the people of Idlib are spared the worst — even if this entails some unpalatable moral compromises. Assertive deterrence by the United States and its partners is essential. To be effective, however, deterrence should be linked to a diplomatic strategy that will require difficult trade-offs.
Washington should start by vowing to retaliate in the event of any indiscriminate use of violence by Assad against his own people, in a manner of our choosing. This could be done without dramatically escalating U.S. involvement in the war…