It almost goes without argument that sovereign states do not and cannot allow zones to be established within their territories outside of the effective physical control of the central government. There was a very good and somewhat recent illustration of this principle in the United States when the US presidency was last held by a member of the Democratic party before Barack Obama.
The Waco siege began on February 28, 1993, and ended violently 50 days later on April 19. The siege began when the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), accompanied by several members of the media, attempted to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch at Mount Carmel, a property located 9 miles (14 km) east-northeast of Waco, Texas. On February 28, shortly after the attempt to serve the warrant, an intense gun battle erupted, lasting nearly 2 hours. In this armed exchange, four agents and six Branch Davidians were killed. Upon the ATF's failure to execute the search warrant, a siege was initiated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The siege ended 50 days later when a fire destroyed the compound when a second assault was launched. 76 people (24 of them British nationals) died in the fire, including more than 20 children, two pregnant women, and the sect leader David Koresh.There was never even a suspicion that Koresh's Branch Dravidian group had hostile foreign support. But for that group to control even its privately-owned compound to the potential exclusion of central security forces is intolerable for the United States no more and no less than it is for Bashar Assad's Syria. Barack Obama would handle a similar situation exactly the same way Bill Clinton did and Assad would. If hostile foreign powers were openly supporting organizations attempting to establish zones that are denied to central security forces, any sovereign leader of a dictatorship or democracy would use overwhelming force to prevent denied zones or liberated territory from being established.
