Last week in Geneva, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council along with Turkey and Arab League representatives agreed on a transition plan for Syria. They proposed a transitional government that would include members of both the regime and the opposition.
The plan failed to break new ground as Russia successfully blocked a provision that would have excluded anyone whose participation would undermine the process - which obviously includes President Bashar Al Assad. And so the plan was widely dismissed as another sign of the impotence of the international community and its failure to act meaningfully to end the bloodshed.
A closer look, however, shows that the plan was more about Turkey than Syria.
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