Syria - No Military Action (for now)

Parliament has voted against British involvement in any military action against Syria. There is, of course, no reason why the government should not seek a further vote in due course, but for the time being we are safe. If the situation changes for the worse, the government could again seek a mandate for action, and rightly so, but at present parliament has listened to the electorate and decided to avoid military involvement.
One thing that worries me is that politicians never seem to look far ahead, and there was no discussion of the possible consequences of any involvement. Action would have worsened our relationship with Russia as well as with a number of Arab and Muslim countries and stangely as it might be seen, we would, in effect, be supporting Al-Qaeda who are now the dominant anti-Assad force in Syria.
Even worse, we would invite retaliation. Arabs tend to believe in taking revenge, if only to save face. Unless Assad were to be killed, he would want revenge, and as he has no military capability for striking at this country, I believe he could and would resort to terrorism. He has Sarin and other nasty chemicals at his disposal; how difficult would he find it to smuggle some into this country for use by a suicide bomber? No doubt we will soon be hit by an influx of Syrian asylum seekers - how do we tell the goodies from the baddies? Assad would only need one baddie who wants to go to paradise in order to carry out a gas attack on the Underground and satisfy his lust for revenge.
So we must thank Parliament for making the right decision tonight, even, as some might argue, it was for the wrong reasons.

Syria

I have just been reading in the Telegraph that the "finger of suspicion" with regards to the use of chemical weapons in the town of Khan al-Assal last week now points strongly towards the Islamic jihadist rebels. It appears to have been an unsophisticated weapon using a form of chlorine known as CL17. One argument suggests that Syrian troops have far more sophisticated weapons at their disposal, and thus it would be unlikely to have been fired by them. Of course, as in all conflicts of this nature, it is always difficult to get at the truth and it could have been a "double bluff" by government forces.

Nevertheless, our government still seems convinced that it should supply weapons to the rebels as a result of some convoluted reasoning that it would help the refugees. I am glad that the EU turned down the Anglo-French proposal to partially lift the Syrian arms embargo to allow the supply of weapons to the rebel groups and I must place on record that for once I approve of an EU decision.

As far as I am concerned the old phrase "A Plague on both your houses " applies here.