This Blog is emphatically against any sort of armed intervention, missile strike or whatever in Syria. It can only make matters worse. There is no doubt that the apparent chemical attack is shocking. There is no doubt either that the Assad regime could have been quicker to let in the UN Inspectors. There is, however confident William Hague and the Foreign Office claim to be in blaming the Assad regime, some doubt about who exactly released the toxins and how.
The shambolic mess called western foreign policy failed at the very beginning when it refused to talk to anyone constructively including the Russians and the Chinese, unless Assad went first. Had this condition not been made an accommodation would have been found of one sort or another or talks would still be going on, but there would be no full blown civil war.
The Rebels, some of whom are friendly to the West, but a substantial group among the most powerful fighters are virulently hostile, gambled that a trigger happy combination lead by Britain and France, would persuade everyone to back military support of the kind offered to the Libyan rebels. This miscalculation has all but destroyed the Syrian state and wrought abominable suffering upon its people. The West assumed Assad would be gone in weeks but not only has he stayed, but he is gaining the upper hand.
There is therefore no motive for Assad to use chemical weapons on a major scale now and especially not with weapons inspectors in the country. On the other hand the rebels are desperate. They are losing militarily and losing international support. The latest exodus from Syria of Kurds in the north to Iraq of many tens of thousands, especially families with elderly relatives and women and children, is a flight from the Rebels. All interviewed said that under Assad they lived in peace and were happy.
There has been endless talk of red lines and it would make good strategic sense based upon principals devoid of humanity, for the Rebels to gas their own people and blame Assad. Maybe then the West will respond. No said a cautious Obama, but Hague and Cameron, unable to see the last military effort, Libya, as a failure, were determined to draw America in. Evidently they are too prejudiced to see that that the only coherent motive for Assad to gas his people is to provoke the West into action which it will regret and which will cost it a decade of diplomatic credibility.
Hague and Cameron have already forgotten the downfall of Blair and fail to see the damage that the chaos in Iraq, the mess in Afghanistan, the instability in Pakistan and the complete failure of Libya to from an effective government, is doing to the credibility of not only the United States and the UK, but also to their allies. This is because all of it stems from the post 9/11 shift in foreign policy from one of containment and compromise in which enemies become friends, to one of intervention and force in which friends becoming enemies.
It would, if they paid attention, now be prudent to move cautiously forward, as far as possible in step with the Russians, until the UN Inspectors report their findings. If there is proof that Assad did it, then agreement should be possible with the Russians on what might prove an effective restraint. Without a clear line of guilt, the risk of action is many times greater than doing nothing. It will intensify the fighting, draw more fighters in, create conflict , if not with neighbouring states, in them. The added dimension is the collapse of the governments established in the Arab Spring in both Egypt and Tunisia, adding to the lack of stability in a region now so volatile as to be on the verge of going critical.
When claiming there is ‘no doubt that Assad is guilty’ Hague should remember above all that the very experts now briefing him are the ones who said there was no doubt that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Hague and his people may have forgotten or wish to make light of it as in the past, but the rest of the world has neither forgotten, nor does it view one of the greatest intelligence failures in history as over and done with.
Meanwhile in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon and above all Syria, countless innocents die every day. A cruise missile strike on Syria will kill many more. It is beyond the comprehension of this Blog to see how even a fool can suppose this will help.