David Ignatius's 'The Syrian Conflict Has Reached A Critical Moment'

Opinion writer, David Ignatius, in his column “The Syrian Conflict has Reached a Critical Moment,” discusses the Syrian conflict and the possible future it holds. Ignatius’ central thought seems to be that the US should move forward with a cease fire plan, proposed by Secretary of State Kerry. His language takes on a hopeful tone as he discusses the idealistic scenario of a cease fire and other possible outcomes.

In the second paragraph, Ignatius brings up the cease fire that was proposed in last week in Munich. He recognizes that this plan would depend heavily on Russian cooperation, as they have been bombing Syrian cities. This cease fire plan could cut down on the risk of Syrian lives and reduce their suffering. Ignatius offers some support

He appeals to the reader's sense of humanity and writes about the relief efforts put forward by the Munich plan. He does this in order to generate a positive association between the Munich deal and the relief efforts, to conjure support of the deal from the readers. The author takes a more doubtful tone when mentioning how this was to take effect on February 19. Ignatius describes how there are no clear signals of stopped from the opposition, and how the Russians continue to attack rebel areas. He believes that the Islamic State should seize the opportunity for political discussion; however, commenters on his column find his wishful thinking nieve. With a more realistic approach in mind, Ignatius tells readers how a full ceasefire, particularly in the Aleppo area, is just impossible at the moment. With Turkish forces shelling the US backed Kurdish rebels, Russia bombing around Aleppo, and Arab rebels and Islamic State forces just looking to rack up a body count. Ignatius brings this up to give the readers a sense of what is happening in Aleppo, and how a total ceasefire is just not possible in the moment. Ignatius digresses into how if Russia continues their attacks, it would ruin any hope of a truce, and how easy it would be to blame Moscow for any

His next few paragraphs are forward looking. “Going forward,” he says, “ the United States needs more military leverage to match Russia.” How this happens, he mentions that Saudi Arabia and UAE offer to send people in Syria and will be under US command. Ignatius postulates that the incoming forces might lead to a strike on the Islamic State’s capital. Ignatius switches focus back to the US and how they are moving in the Islamic State. Giving readers more background knowledge on the subject, he lets on about who is allied with who, and who is backed by who, mainly focusing on the US backed Syrian Kurdish fighters. He gives rough figures on how many people were apart of the most recent attack. He could be doing this to give the readers a sense of how large the conflict really is. In the following paragraph, he boast about how the US backed Kurds have been some of the most effective fighters in the conflict, despite the attacks from Turkey. “The Turks have been shelling YPG positions in northwest Syria — even as these fighters (with quiet U.S. support) have been attacking Islamic State positions near Aleppo,” he writes. He conveys this to his readers, because it is really something else. He calls it a “What a crazy war — with a NATO member (Turkey) attacking America’s best allies in Syria (the Kurds)!” which many of his readers seem to agree with his sentiment. He brings this up in order to create a statement that