European Nations Warn Solution To Syrian Crisis Will Take 'Decades'
Sweden and Poland warned against knee-jerk reactions to the crisis in Syria on Saturday, saying that any international effort to solve it will require a commitment "for decades to come".
Speaking at a regional NATO conference in the Latvian capital, Riga, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said the West was being short-sighted regarding the instability sweeping the Middle East.
"Let's be realistic. We have an escalating civil war in the entire Levant...the only thing I can say that would have a reasonable chance of success would be to go in with armies and stay there for 30 years and try to do some real nation building. Appetite for that? Non existent," Bildt said.
"It is an immensely complex problem. There is not a simple solution. We will have, on the European side, to stay engaged with this part of the world for decades to come in every single respect," Bildt added.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski pointed to previous Western interventions in Libya and Iraq as a reason for caution.
"Do you really want us to do another Iraq? Was that really such a good idea? Was it worth the [spoils of war] and the blood that was expended there?" Sikorski asked an audience consisting chiefly of foreign policy experts, urging them to "think about the consequences before we plunge in".
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/european-nations-warn-solution-to-syrian-crisis-will-take-decades-2013-9
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