Winter storms in the middle east would mean bone gnawing chills for Syrian refugees who fled their country amid the on-going civil war that has been claiming lives and crippling the country since 2011. With very limited food and shelter, a refugee's wish would be akin to one of the gloomy bedtime stories about a matchstick girl wanting to have a home of her own. For Syrian refugees, all they desire is an end to this conflict.
Nonetheless, strategists and think tanks continue to formulate a sensible solution to the conflict in the internally embattled country. With the growing influence of extremist groups in Syria and its neighbors, the US government is making a shift from calling for the Syrian president to step-down to generating diplomatic solutions to dissolve the internal conflicts causing concerns for the US and other the EU, according to a report from The New York Times.
The shift on policy came with the increasing terrorist activity of ISIS. The US government has laid low on its earlier demands of calling for the Syrian president to step down. Instead, it opened doors to suggestions coming from the UN and from Russia that could lead to a ceasefire and peace talks among warring parties in Syria.
When the drums of the Arab Spring started rumbling at the borders of Syria in 2011, US President Barack Obama made a bold demand on the Syrian people and their leader. Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad had to go was Obama's statement when the rumblings rolled out into a full scale civil war, according to a report from The Washington Post.
The US government, including the EU leadership, pressed several sanctions on the Syrian government to pressure Assad from stepping down. Regardless of the tremors in all directions, Assad won a fresh mandate in the 2014 presidential elections. Then came the extremist group ISIS wanting to consolidate power in the country and its periphery through terrorist activities.
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