On the clamour to repeat the disastrous Iraq and Libya interventions in Syria

April 16th, 2018

Awake Goy

Nureddin Sabir, Editor, Redress Information & Analysis, writes:

Despite the ongoing death and destruction that has followed Western military interventions in Iraq and Libya, the clamour for a repeat performance in Syria is gaining momentum, especially in Washington and London where Donald Trump and Theresa May have plenty of internal problems from which they wish to deflect attention.

The proponents of military intervention in Syria should name one – only one – instance where such intervention in the Middle East has resulted in a good outcome for the people of the country targeted. Attacking Syria will achieve just one thing: helping the remnants of Islamic State group and other jihadist cutthroats such as Al-Qaeda, the Saudi-backed (if not created) Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam) and the Muslim Brotherhood. It also risks breaking up Syria into ethnic and sectarian entities that will, without a doubt, be at perpetual war with one another.

The Syrian president, Bashar Asad, just like his father Hafiz, is capable of any kind of atrocity you care to mention – few people would disagree with that. As regards the alleged chemical attack in Douma, his regime is one of a number of possible suspects, the others being the jihadists themselves and Israel. We know that accusations against Israel tend to be met with sneers by Western politicians and mainstream media these days, but in many cases they are very real. It is also worth noting that Israel has not signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and has not ratified the the Chemical Weapons Convention.

One should not be too generous towards or trusting of the motives of the US and its satellite states towards Syria. We know from the case of Iraq that they are proven and accomplished liars. They have their ulterior motives that have absolutely nothing to do with human rights. Washington and its satellites don’t give a cahoot about human rights and never, ever, have — we know that from other instances in the Middle East and from Yemen, Latin America and elsewhere.

We also know from WikiLeaks that the civil strife that is blighting Syria (and Iraq) is fully consistent with the desires of US and Israeli political and military elites.

We at Redress Information & Analysis made a huge mistake in 2011 by lauding what has become the Arab Nightmare. Our reaction was emotional, not rational, and based on revulsion at the regimes that ruled the Arab world. We did not think that worse abominations could replace those regimes. We dare say many other people’s reactions were similarly based, and we are all now paying the price for that. The lesson for us was to dig beyond emotions and steer clear from the disastrous logic of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” or the primeval urge for revenge against a monstrous system without thinking about the other, worse monstrosities that could replace it.