Supporting non-violence in Syria

Foreign Policy December 20, 2012
[Also at Truthout and International Center for Nonviolent Conflict] 
While a growing number of people are calling for increased military aid to armed insurgents or even direct military intervention, as the French government has said it will consider, to support the armed opposition would likely exacerbate the Syrian people’s suffering and appear to validate the tragic miscalculation by parts of the Syrian opposition to supplant their bold and impressive nonviolent civil insurrection with an armed insurgency.