Cameron pushing for intervention in Syria?

It would seem almost superfluous to note that the situation in Syria is very ugly, but irrespective of the complexities and the relative ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ articulated by different elements within the pro- and anti-regime camps, the civil conflict in that country is not our conflict, and we have no business in becoming embroiled in it. Nonetheless, there has for quite some time been a clear eagerness on the part of leading members of our Government – as exemplified by William Hague in particular – to get involved in some fashion, by lending assistance of one form of another to ‘the rebels’, despite the significant if not leading role played by jihadists within this opposition.

Assad is far from being a saint of course, but what do Hague and the policy makers at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office realistically anticipate will replace him and his regime? One thing is for certain: it will not be a Western-style liberal democracy. As elsewhere in the Arab world where unrest has led to the toppling of long-established regimes over the past couple of years, the most likely outcome is an Islamist government, and as events in Egypt are demonstrating, this is unlikely to produce a system of consensual governance based upon equality before the law for all of its citizens. Members of Syria’s Christian population may look at the position of Egypt’s Copts, and therein divine the sort of future that they can expect to face.

A report in today’s Guardian states that David Cameron has asked for plans to be drawn up ‘for maritime or air support to rebels’, but with the proviso that such support would only be rendered in the event of the US also intervening in the Syrian conflict. However, this request is reported as generating unease amongst our chiefs of staff, who have drawn parallels with the pressure brought to bear by Cameron in the lead-up to the intervention in Libya, but note that in the case of Syria, the situation would be ‘very different’ owing u/ &e s%)`army’s much stronger ground-to-air missile capability. Hague, in wishful and myopic fa{hnog prZ)sts in constructing a fantasy Syrian opposition which he hopes, according to the Guardian, will ‘unify around a coherent programme built on respect for human rights and ethnic tolerance.’

The tide appears to have turned against the Assad regime, but what comes next should be left up to the Syrians themselves. Intervening because of the feeling that ‘something should be done’, is not a valid reason for doing so. If we were to intervene, it would generate one sort of resentment or another, and may not lead to an outcome that we would find desirable.

Obama: preparing to attack Syria?

There are ominous signs that the US is preparing for military intervention against Syria. As in Iraq, it is of course the pretext of WMD - this time the potential movement of Syrian chemical and biological weopons - that is being deployed to rationalise US aggression. The New York Times quotes Obama as saying:

We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people.

In other words, the US President is implying that such weapons could fall into the hands of Islamist militants including Al-Qaeda. This comes a day after Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennadii Gatilov claimed that:

Yet more facts have appeared, including those in the mass media, about the massive scale of the supply of weaponry manufactured in the West to the Syrian opposition through third countries.

Today, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo as well as a Syrian government delegation, and issued a statement reiterating their opposition to foreign intervention in Syria, emphasising "the need to strictly adhere to the norms of international law and the principles contained in the UN Charter, and not to allow their violation". No country or group of nations, in their opinion, should pursue a policy of imposing "democracy by bombs". The message from Moscow and Beijing to Obama is clear: stay out of Syria. The question is, will the world's sole military hyperpower take heed of these words, or instead pursue the reckless policy of destabilising and destroying another Arab state with no clear vision of what is likely to come next? Some within America's Christian fundamentalist eschatological fringe may rave with enthusiasm at such a potential portent of the coming of the 'end times', but rational beings everywhere will instead shudder at the likely mass bloodletting which will ensue.

It is widely known that Islamist militants, including some holding UK passports, have entered Syria in order to destabilise the Assad regime, and that regional powers such as Saudi Arabia appear to have been funding the uprising. Whatever should happen, Syria's internal problems are not our problems, and the UK should not interfere in Syrian affairs. However, just as in Libya, there has been a clamour for intervention within our foreign policy establishment that has been paralleled by the BBC's emotive tenor favouring direct intervention. We should not succomb to such propaganda. Atrocities are being committed in Syria, and they are being committed by both sides. However, the so-called "activists" of the "Opposition" are not, on the whole, humane Western-style democrats. Islamism looks set to come to Syria aided, no matter how unwittingly, by the US and the UK. Life under Assad may have been bad for some people, but for others, particularly Christians and Alawites, many may find that they have no lives at all once his regime is gone. If Syria fragments, what happens to her neighbouring states? What impact, in particular, will this have on Turkey? Ethnic and confessional groups straddle borders, and hundreds of thousands of refugees threaten to add an additional destabilising influence to the mix.

Any Questions: Sadiq Khan wants Dhimmis to die for the Muslim World

Tooting Popular Front (sorry, I meant to say Labour) MP Sadiq Khan’s appearance on Radio 4’s Any Questions, yielded some exceptionally dull and predictable responses. As one would expect from a Muslim MP, he was quite happy to make a case for British taxpayer’s money (and potentially lives) being wasted in our pointless intervention in Libya. When asked as to whether he thought that no-fly zones ought therefore to be logically extended to Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, he wouldn’t address the question, and instead blathered on at length about the UN Security Council’s sanction of the no-fly zone over Libya. Would Khan define what the objectives for this intervention were? No. Would he explain when the time would come for the intervention to end? No.

Different perspectives were forthcoming from Daily Mail columnist Anne Leslie and Communist RMT Leader Bob Crow. Surprisingly, the two of them were in agreement over the folly of the imposition of a no-fly zone in Libya by NATO. Leslie quite rightly underscored the “ill-thought out” nature of the intervention, which at least in part appears to have been driven by television pictures and the misplaced idea of so-called ‘humanitarian intervention.’ Crow however, rightly noted that it was not this principle which constituted the primary driver for intervention, for if that had been the case, then there would have been interventions in numerous other places such as Zimbabwe, Sudan and Burma: “this is about one thing and one thing only: oil. If you’re a dictator who supports the West, you’re fine.” Well, looking at Saudi Arabia, might he not have a point on this score?

Sadiq Khan argues in favour of intervention because he is a Muslim and Libyans are Muslims. This is a clear illustration of the lasting and embedded harm done to our society by the implanting of the hostile alien ideology of Islam, for its followers identify more closely with their co-religionists overseas than with the indigenous British people. The real British people have no interest in intervening in Libya or anywhere else in the Muslim world. Libya’s problems are not our problems, and there is neither reason for us to intervene, nor benefit to be gained from such an intervention. Libya’s problems should be solved by Libyans and Libyans alone. As this intervention is injurious to our national interests and national security and Khan supports it, Khan is a threat to our national security (as, to be fair, are Cameron, Clegg, Hague et al). He represents only a section of his Muslim constituents; he does not represent the will of indigenous Britons. Voters of Tooting: eject Sadiq Khan at the earliest possible opportunity. Elect someone who will seek to represent your interests, not those of the Ummah.