Syria - is there anything the international community should or could do?

[mids2019]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/02/iran-backed-iraqi-militias-join-fight-in-syria-after-militants-seize-aleppo

Now hospitals are being hit and this does seem a precursor to a horrid war with Assad having no compunction about extreme tactics against his own people. Is there anything the West could or should do in the forthcoming months and years to avert this conflict?

Do you mean without being blamed for the consequences?
Get better PR.

Try to make sure refugees integrate into societies and don't bring the conflict with them?

Find a way to kill the money tree that supplies arms to jihadis.

Name me one foreign conflict that the west has got involved in which has ended well and benefited us. We should stay out of it. I'm sick of this country spending billions and sending British soldiers to die in countries to which we owe nothing.

'Doing something' doesn't have to mean deploying troops. But Sierra Leone & Kosovo are both examples of successful British military intervention. Who measures what we 'owe'? In an interconnected world anything that advances positive outcomes and diminishes the power of terrorists, autocrats & international criminals is a good thing.

We should avoid it.

Encourage Assad and the rebels to negotiate and stick to peace commitments.

Arms embargos and sanctions. Stop arming and facilitating crimes against humanity.

Aid to support the innocent people trapped in this. There are many legitimate charities working hard to get aid in and save lives in Syria.

Legal routes for family reunification processes for the loved ones of people who have already left - these people may be especially vulnerable. Overhaul immigration processes to prioritise and support people in genuine need, including support with integration and processing trauma.

Put public pressure on Turkey by protests etc to stop arming and supporting the HTS.

@Scirocco

"Encourage Assad and the rebels to negotiate and stick to peace commitments."

Unfortunately this is not a conflict where people will ever consider negotiations and compromise - that would be seen as weakness. And even less so stick to any peace commitments.

Turkey couldn't and wouldn't do anything, let alone arming and supporting these jihadist groups without the blessings of USA/CIA and Mossad. Turkey recently wanted to normalize relations with Syria for two reasons:
1- Turkey is overwhelmed with Syrian refugees and they want to send them back to their homes
2- Turkey wants to get rid of these jihadists groups within their territory as they pose a risk to themselves as well
Turkey's condition for normalization to Assad was getting of YPG (Kurdish) controlled areas as YPG is a threat to Turkey. It seems like Assad didn't want to get rid of YPG and use them as bargaining chips.
Turkey denounces any involvement with latest attacks in Syria by the jihadists, which was done after meeting with Iranian foreign minister. Since Iran and Syria are on the same team, they would know if Turkey was involved and wouldn't agree with Turkey's statement if not true.
So no, putting pressure on Turkey won't change anything as they don't have control over these groups at this point.

I believe the best thing to do for Syria is to let Assad rule the country. He is much much better then these jihadi fundamentalists. We need to also admit that the destabilization of Syria is a proxy war between USA and Russia and nothing to do with democracy or anything of that sort and was a mistake to begin with.

@OchaLove

"I believe the best thing to do for Syria is to let Assad rule the country. He is much much better then these jihadi fundamentalists. We need to also admit that the destabilization of Syria is a proxy war between USA and Russia and nothing to do with democracy or anything of that sort and was a mistake to begin with."

I agree that the lesser of two evils is for Assad to stay in control and that he is better than the fundamentalists.

However there are some that will argue that you are being an apologist for the Assad dictatorship and that you are justifying the killing of innocent civilians by Russia and Syria including children.

I disagree with you that this is a proxy war between Russia and the US. I think that the US originally naively started out supporting the rebels because they naively wanted to create a western oriented democracy in Syria and against the bombing of civilians by the Assad regime.

However as the conflict fragmented and the rise of ISIS, the US realised that the alternative was not democracy but a Libyan type civil war on steroids with an extreme Islamic fundamentalism on top.

So the US then backed away as much as possible but still has a presence to show that they didn't completely run away