Syria's downing of Turkish jet unlikely to pull NATO into Syrian conflict

Syria's downing of a Turkish fighter-bomber has the feel of a turning point that could drag Western powers into a conflict that is spiraling out of control.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has vowed to hold Syria to account, while Britain's foreign minister said Damascus won't be allowed to act with impunity.

But for all the hard talk, the prospect of Western military intervention in Syria remains remote, at best.

For one thing, military action is unlikely to get the support of either the U.N. Security Council or the Arab League, and outside intervention without the blessing of both of those bodies is all but unthinkable. And there is little appetite among the 28 NATO countries — of which the U.S. is the largest — for another war in the Middle East.

Libya was hard enough, and for a many nervous months it looked as if that conflict might end in an embarrassing stalemate for the West. And Syria would be tougher than Libya. Syrian President Bashar Assad's army is better equipped, better trained, better paid and far more loyal than was that of late Libyan leader Moammar Gaddhafi.

So for the moment, despite the increasing violence and the staggering number of deaths, action by the international community seems to be limited to sanctions and strong words.

And so it was on Monday, when foreign ministers from the 27 European Union countries condemned Syria'sdowning Friday of a Turkish jet, but said the bloc would not support military action in the troubled country.

"What happened is to be considered very seriously," said Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal. Having gotten his denunciation out of the way, he let the other shoe drop: "We do not go for any interventions."

Turkish officials have said the jet mistakenly strayed into Syrian airspace, but was warned to leave by Turkish authorities and was a mile (1.6 kilometers) inside international airspace when Syria shot it down. The Turkish pilots are still missing.

Turkey immediately called a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body, on Tuesday to discuss the incident. Any NATO member can request such consultations if their territorial integrity has been threatened.

An alliance diplomat said ambassadors will discuss Turkey's concerns — and would likely condemn the downing.

"But there won't be anything more specific than that," said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of standing rules.

Turkey, too, appeared to be attempting to moderate the situation, trying to balance a response that would assuage domestic outrage over the shooting, while avoiding a conflict. Turkey has been one of the fiercest critics of Assad's crackdown. But at this point, it has no wish to inflame already-heightened tensions.

A Turkish government official said the government was trying to ratchet up diplomatic pressure on Syria, where activists say more than 14,000 people have been killed in the 15-month uprising. He said the country was still working out what steps to take — though they would not include military intervention.

"We are not talking about war, but we will keep the pressure on Syria and give it no chance to catch its breath," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government rules.

Mustafa Kibaroglu, a professor of international relations at Istanbul's Okan University, said that by calling Tuesday's emergency meeting ?, Turkey was trying to show Syria that it has the full support of NATO and the European Union.

But he dismissed the possibility the alliance would activate a rule in its founding treaty — Article 5 — that declares that an attack against any NATO country shall be considered as an attack against them all.

"Unless there is another ... act of provocation (from Syria), there will be no activation of Article 5," Kibaroglu said.

Syria has said it was unaware that the F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber belonged to Turkey, and that it was protecting its air space against an unknown intruder. In the past, Israeli warplanes have penetrated Syrian airspace by flying over the Mediterranean coastline.

Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said the downing was an accident, caused by the "automatic response" of an officer commanding an anti-aircraft gun. The man saw a jet coming at him at high speed and low altitide and opened fire, Makdissi said.

Analysts said that, although the latest incident will likely be contained, the conflict in Syria is now threatening to draw in other nations.

"Syria's apology will probably quell the immediate outrage," said Barak Seener, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute, a British military think tank.

"But it's increasingly clear that as the conflict escalates there will be a spillover effect with regional consequences," he said. "While NATO will not get involved yet, this illustrates that international actors will increasingly be sucked into the conflict."

Still, there is a sense of war-weariness in NATO, an aversion to any more involvement in the Middle East after last year's conflict over Libya.

The alliance's primary focus remains the costly war in Afghanistan, where the alliance still has about 130,000 troops, a decade after the ouster of the Taliban regime. Although NATO forces enjoy overwhelming superiority in numbers, firepower and mobility, the guerrillas are showing no sign of giving up.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has repeatedly said that the alliance would need a clear international mandate, and regional support, before it embarked on a mission in Syria.

Last year, the alliance launched air attacks on Libyan government targets only after receiving a mandate from the U.N. Security Council, along with backing from the Arab League.

But in Syria's case, the Arab League hasn't been able to agree on the need for military intervention. EvenSyria's different opposition groups are riven by divisions over whether outside military intervention would help or hurt. Some in the Syrian opposition argue that it would reduce their country to rubble, leaving them nothing on which to build a new future once Assad was gone.

And Russia and China — both veto-wielding members of the Security Council — have consistently shielded Assad's regime from international sanctions over its violent crackdown on protests. Russia also has continued to provide Syria with arms, despite Western calls for a halt in supplies.

Last week, President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the Syrian crisis on the sidelines of a Group of 20 economic conference in Mexico.

The meeting ended without apparent agreement on how to end the violence.