Deploying an international security force makes it sound like peacekeeping.  But it looks very much like there won't be a peace to keep.  If we really want to follow through on the suggestion of this article, we will have to consider the much more robust deployment of a truly combat-ready counter-insurgency force.  Ideally, this would be from countries in the region, but the Alawites are not likely to feel secure being protected by Sunnis from Turkey, Egypt, Saudi, or Jordan.  So we probably have to deploy different troops according to who lives where, an extremely complicated proposition.  Maybe its do-able.But they'll have to be good enough to really root out the terrorists, and not just be sitting ducks at checkpoints.  I'm not so sure.

 

It is unlikely that these countries  could really afford to provide the troops necessary (and supply them) for a long period, so someone will have to step up, there.  The Saudis, I guess.  But it will be godawful expensive, even for them, costing something like what the Iraq adventure cost.  Any early pullouts will cause the whole thing to collapse. 

 

This whole plan is do-able in an ideal world in which the political will and resources exist.  But that looks so far away from the present reality, I can only foresee a debacle.   Good Luck, Syria.  

It's not likely that U.S.public opinion will allow for any kind of American contribution to a peacekeeping operation . Remember the bombing of the Marine Barracks? For years the Alawites have allowed Syria to be front and center in the antiwestern terrorist movement. They are getting what they paid for - leave them alone.