Britain to Scrap, Or Simply Circumvent, Syria Arms Embargo

Leaders Insist Throwing Weapons at Rebels Key to Victory

by Jason Ditz, March 12, 2013

The Syrian Civil War remains stalemated, as it has for many months, with death tolls rising and territory changes, when they come at all, coming in small tracts of land and costing massive amounts of troops.

To hear Britain and France talk, the inability of the rebels to conquer the nation begins and ends with the weaponry they are receiving from Gulf Nations, and if Western nations could start throwing weapons at them too, the war would be won pretty quickly.

To that end, British and French officials say that they are determined to see the European Union’s arms embargo, already defanged with a “humanitarian aid” clause that allows virtually anything but the actual guns to be given to the rebels, eliminated outright.

If they can’t, British Prime Minister David Cameron has suggested Britain will try to veto or simply ignore the ban and arm the rebels anyhow, saying such a move wouldn’t be “out of the question.”

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