Isolationism

I'm beginning to believe in isolationism; Wherever possible we should keep out of other peoples' problems; we keep being told that we no longer have an empire so why should we continue to be the world's policemen?
Certainly our interventions have achieved very little; in broad terms this country's involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya can't be claimed to have improved things in those countries by any stretch of imagination. Indeed, all that it seems to have done is to turn Muslims worldwide against the West and against Britain and America in particular.
The Middle East problems at this time are clearly of great concern, a quasi-religious organisation going under the name of the Islamic State has captured large swathes of Syria and Iraq in the wake of the unrest in these countries. It has declared the new Caliphate will extend from the Mediterranean through to the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea where they intend to establish a most extreme form of Sharia Law. It seems to be getting organised, in that, what was a ramshackle mob in pick-up trucks, managed to cause the Iraq army in the north of the country to flee leaving them with a considerable amount of modern military equipment, kindly supplied by the Americans to the Iraqi army. They have killed huge numbers of people during their rampage which has received relatively little publicity compared with the assault by Israeli troops on Hamas in Gaza.
The only real resistance they face, at present, is from the Kurds and the Peshmerga fighters. However their weapons are old fashioned and the don't have the armour and longer range weapons available to their attackers.
The other quandary is Syria, where the whole problem started. Thankfully, our Parliament voted against providing arms and assistance to those fighting Assad which, for once, seems to have been the right thing to do as these are the fighters which have now become the forces of the Islamic State. I am aware that Assad in Syria is a nasty bit of work, but until the so-called "Arab Spring", he maintained law and order, and more importantly protected the minority religions.

My concern at the moment is that the government at this time seems to be simply watching events unfold and seems to have no clue as to what to do. Surely those responsible at the Foreign Office, Intelligence Services and the Military should be conducting a serious study of the different possible scenarios that might develop in the Middle East along with a further study of the threats posed by Muslim extremists within this country? In my view, Cameron should be kicking people into action, not surfing from a Cornish beach.

The next problem area is Ukraine, and here I'm in favour of an total policy of non-involvement. What have the events in Ukraine to do with us? We have absolutely no interests in the area and if Russia wants to take over Ukraine, so what? How does it impact on this country? It seems to be a corrupt basket case of a country and why the EU wants to get involved beats me and gives yet another reason for wanting to be out of the EU.

Meanwhile, I would observe that haven't read any reports in the media that "Baroness" Warsi, or any of the Muslim MPs have expressed their concern over the murder of James Foley. Indeed, I haven't read of any representative Muslin organisation in the UK which has expressed any regrets, which I'm sure must be a matter of concern to many people.

Syria - What will Obama Do?

After the US media has criticised the UK for not being prepared to go to was with Syria and failing to support them in their desire to bomb Syria, Obama has decided to allow Congress to debate the issue before taking action. For once I believe he has made a wise move; it was foolish of him to draw the so-called red line, and it may be embarrassing for him if Congress opposes military action, but even so, I'm sure he is doing the right thing.  In a democratic country, unless there is an immediate threat to its own peoples, no government should take military action without approval of Parliament.

What I believe is the problem in both countries is that it is unclear whether bombing Syria would make any difference. What sort of targets are being proposed that won't cause thousands more unnecessary deaths? Bombing the factories and/or stocks of chemical weapons (assuming that they have been located) will release the very poisons that we are complaining about, killing even more. The situation is made worse because media reports suggest that Assad is holding his prisoners of war at these sites as human shields. So what do we attack that will "punish" Assad, yet not cause thousands more deaths on either side?

The other problem is that if Assad is deposed, those that replace him could be far worse. We've already heard of atrocities being committed by the rebels, and with Al-Qaeda now deeply involved the situation could go from bad to worse. As with Iraq, there seems to be no real forward planning either here or in the US as to how we might deal with the situation in the event of Assad being deposed.

I'm all for action against this tyrant if someone could come up with a practical plan, but to me the mere lobbing of a hundred or so missiles at undefined sites in Syrian seems a very expensive way of achieving absolutely nothing whilst alienating even more members of the Muslim community worldwide.

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 - Why should Assad use WMD?

I have been reading the various blogs in the Telegraph about Syria, and this one by Dr Tim Stanley caught my eye, particularly as his thinking on this occasion is broadly the same as mine, only he makes the case so much better than I ever could.

Syria: why would Assad invite a Western intervention by using WMDs in a war he was winning? 

He makes the argument, as in the headlines, that there was every reason for Assad not using such weapons as he was winning the war, and it is just as likely that the attack could have been carried out by one of the various opposition groups.

Indeed, I would reiterate the question I've already asked, "Why the mad rush to take action in Syria before the UN inspectors have had a chance to publish the results of their investigation?" It has not been unknown, in the past, for terrorists to kill their own supporters if this could gain them an advantage, and it could be the same here, particularly if those in the area concerned were supporting the "wrong" opposition group or belonged to a different religious sect.

If you have already read your twenty free pages this month in the Telegraph, can I suggest that you clear the relevant cookies on your computer and try again.

Al-Qaeda in Syria

I wrote a week or so ago (here) about the dangers of providing arms to the rebels in Syria and today's news reports give further cause for concern.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has taken over from Bin Laden, has called for the creation of an Islamic caliphate to take over from Assad and urged all the rebel fighters to join this common cause. The main rebel group, Al-Nusra Front, has already pledged allegiance to Zawahiri, and it now seems likely that the conflict could lead to a three way confrontation.
However, the success of the Al-Nusra Front has alarmed many of those who had avoided involvement in the conflict with the result that there is increasing support for the Assad regime, presumably on the basis of "Better the Devil that you know".
At the moment it would seem that the secular/moderate reformists are most likely to loose out as they have neither training or adequate weapons, and whilst it might be tempting for Britain and France to provide them with arms, few comentators seem to think that they will come out on top.
The biggest worry is that Al-Qaeda will achieve its objective and set up an Islamic state from which it would be able to dispatch terrorists world wide. The Assad regime is reported to have huge stocks of chemical weapons, and this country's priority should be to prevent any of these getting into the hands of Al-Qaeda who would most certainly use them both in western capital cities and against Israel.
Whilst Assad is a very nasty dictator, he has, until now, kept relative peace in Syria and not harassed other Islamic sects or the largish Christian minority. Also, apart from occasional sabre rattling, he has left Israel alone.
Much as it goes against the grain to support such a person, the fact remains that the best chance for stability in the area is for him to regain control of the country. In my view it is "pie in the sky" to think that the rebel groups, who took up arms in the hope of achieving a multi-party democracy, will ever succeed in their aims; one only has to look at Iraq, Egypt and Libya to see that our type of democracy simply does not work in these countries.
So I come back to my previous conclusion; to supply arms to anyone in Syria at this time would be the hight of madness. Any British involvement should be limited to the supply humanitarian aid to the refugees through such organisations as the International Red Cross.