With the civil war in Syria becoming ever-more nasty, that most democratic and peace-loving of nations, the United States of America, has announced that it is now going to provide direct military support to the so-called 'rebels'. This move has, of course, been inevitable and it was only a matter of time before the assorted 'hawks', including our very own 'Boy David', convinced the US President that this action was essential. How the situation develops over the coming days and months has now become the question.
The West invaded Iraq because, according to reliable intelligence reports, Saddam Hussein had nuclear capabilities; Tony Blair was all for it but, on that occasion, it was the US President, George W Bush, who led the way as the people of the UK weren't so keen. Although subsequent events proved the people to have been right, our leaders took us into a protracted war which ended up with thousands dead and the overthrow of a dictator, which is what Bush and Blair had wanted from the beginning. That Saddam had, in fact, not had any nuclear capability and the intelligence was either mistaken or deliberately falsified has never been satisfactorily resolved. Saddam ended his days, dangling ignominiously at the end of a rope.
With the smell of cordite in their nostrils, the west, led by the USA and UK, then rounded on another of their 'hate figures', Muammar Gaddafi, in Libya. This started as a civil war with western support and ended up with the West supplying arms and bombing Libyan targets; fortunately, western troops were spared from real conflict but the aim of getting rid of Gaddafi was achieved. He was butchered on camera and the West celebrated.
Now we have Syria, another Islamic dictatorship though one which has, historically, not been particularly opposed to the West. However, for reasons of their own, many of the Syrian people have become unhappy with their leader, Bashar-al-Assad, and have launched a civil war. The West, in its wisdom, has decided that Assad is the villain and also decided that he must go; they may be right but is it actually any of their business ? The Russians, for reasons of their own, don't like this western attitude and have been supporting Assad but, again, is it any of their business either ?
The 'opposition' in Syria seems to be disparate groups of rebels, each with their own axe to grind; which, if any, is capable of forming a government or leading a united country is open to question. The US government has now determined that the Syrian government forces have been using chemical weapons, a conclusion which they say is based on undeniable evidence; are we back to the world of "dodgy dossiers", I wonder. Whatever the evidence, the USA is using it as grounds for a significant increase in its military involvement in Syria's internecine conflict, though exactly what the involvement will be has yet to be stated. Will they simply arm the rebels and if so, which rebels ? Will they launch assaults from outside of Syria or will they actually send in troops ? The only thing we can be sure of is that we're in for yet more bloodshed and Assad's will be in there somewhere.
What will 'Boy David' do now that he appears to have got his way ? Can we expect British troops to be deployed ? Will our cash-strapped nation spend more money that it doesn't have on supporting Syria's opposition ? Having tasted 'Victory' in Libya, is Cameroon now convinced that being a 'war-time' Prime Minister is his passport to re-election in 2015 ? If so, he is surely horribly mistaken.
Assuming that Assad does go, what will replace his regime ? The opposition groups include some allied to Islamic terrorists such as Al-Qaeda while others have their own specific battles to fight; the chances must be that any future government will be no more stable than the current dictatorship and, quite probably, less amenable to the West. As with Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan changing the ruling junta is unlikely to do much to improve the lot of the people or to create pro-western nations; the blatant imperialist approach of the self-righteous western powers must, in fact, be much more likely to achieve the opposite outcomes.
Given the recent history of western involvement in the Middle East, yet more sabre-rattling is something of which we should all be fearful. The trouble is that without a major war to fight somewhere, the more militaristic nations are constantly on the lookout for anywhere where they can send their forces to get a bit of practice, or to undertake a 'proxy war' between each other. For the last couple of decades, this has been the fate of the Middle East as East and West have vied for control; where will it all end ?
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