Geneva II, Syria and building for the future

Two days ago, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon announced that he was inviting the Iranian government to send representatives to the preliminary rounds of the peace conference in Geneva, dubbed 'Geneva II' which has been organised to try and find a negotiated end to the civil war in Syria. The surprise move was met with condemnation from the United States and with the threat of a walkout of the Syrian opposition, who only very recently managed to agree among themselves to actually attend the conference. The controversy is  symptom of a deeper problem with the Geneva talks. The different sides in the talks, the rebels, the USA, the Russians and the government of Bashir al Assad all have different and conflicting agendas and goals. Fundamentally however, the problem is one of aspirations not matching reality for the Western powers and their allies among the Syrian rebels.

The West and the Syrian National Council (SNC) are going into these talks determined to find a future for Syria that does not involve Assad, Iran or Hezbollah, to say nothing of the more radical elements among the Syrian rebels linked to Al Qaeda. Assad, and his backers in Tehran, Moscow, Beirut and probably Baghdad know that his regime is going to stay in place no matter what is agreed at the conference. Assad has a loyal army, Russian and Iranian money and weapons and a large number of Hezbollah fighters on his side. The SNC and its affiliated armed groups are too busy fighting their more radical colleagues and are too outmatched by Assad's firepower to change this dynamic. The West has rightly agreed not to get involved in the conflict, as this would only accomplish the death of more Syrians and possibly draw in Iran and maybe even Russia to the conflict. Armed intervention is a truly woeful idea on all fronts. And yet western governments persist in fanning the flames of opinion that "Assad must go". Assad is going nowhere, and the military and strategic calculus is in his favour.

For some, this is reason to up western military aid and get dug into the conflict in order to change this balance. This is insanity. Far from "failing" the people of Syria by not getting involved, by staying out the West is helping to prevent bloodshed on a greater scale. The obvious comparison to make is to America's entry into World War II. But Assad, for all his brutality is not even in the same universe as Adolf Hitler. There is no justification for unleashing the incredible power and appalling destructive force of America's military in Syria. The collateral damage would far outweigh the benefits of toppling Assad, and that's assuming the Russians and Iranians don't get involved.

A far better comparison is to America's involvement in Europe after the end of the second world war. Through the Marshall Plan, America helped to rebuild Europe's shattered nations and peoples. Instead of the all too common historical precedent of violence, we should look to America's unique and wonderful contribution to a broken continent. Through aid and economic assistance of many different kinds, and through the sheer act of stepping in to help, America helped to rebuild Europe, house its refugees, feed its hungry and make it prosper again. The same needs to be done for Syria. Two million Syrians are currently refugees in neighbouring countries. In many cases these neighbours are under incredible strain to help the new arrivals. It is here that the West can most effectively help Syria. These refugees, whose numbers will only continue to grow as the conflict drags on, are the future of Syria. When this war is over they will be the ones who will return to Syria, to rebuild their homes and their country. The West will play an important role then as well, but the refugees need help now. They need clean water, food, hospitals, schools, durable shelter and housing. Their host countries need help keeping basic amenities and services going for both the refugees and their own people.

This is a real, concrete way of helping Syria. Better by far that the Syrians currently fled from their homes should return in good health, maybe even with education and skills that they can use to help rebuild. Better that instability stemming from a huge influx of people does not destabilise other countries in the region. All this can be accomplished without recourse to violence. And equally important are the internally displaced people within Syria itself. Helping them is a far riskier prospect, but it is a task being undertaken with great courage by many different people and agencies. These groups need help to carry out their task. They need supplies, well stocked bases in neighbouring countries to operate from and adequate transportation in and out of Syria. Again, no force is needed or called for, just aid. Simple, human aid. A helping hand, not a gun. Whatever happens in Geneva, and it is unlikely to be heartwarming, the world can start to build a better future for Syria now, by helping some of her most vulnerable people. This is a worthy goal that everyone can support. We can only hope that it is the goal the West chooses to pursue.

In defence of Yingluck Shinawatra

The continuing political unrest in Thailand, directed by the "Yellow Shirt" movement against the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is a very good example of the changeable and volatile nature of protest movements, particularly those inspired by the Arab Spring of the last few years. Ostensibly the protesters, drawn from the wealthy, educated and privileged elite of Thailand's larger cities, especially Bangkok, are attempting to topple the Shinawatra administration because of its corruption, the influence of the PM's brother Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted as Prime Minister by the Thai military in 2006 and what they claim is her political party's stranglehold on power achieved through populist policies. Looked at one way, the protests pit a westernising, educated protest movement against a corrupt and semi-authoritarian regime. In this view, there are good guys and bad guys, with Shinawatra's government playing the role of villainous oppressors, with Thaksin Shinawatra as the malevolent guiding intelligence. Against her are ranged the forces of righteousness in the form of university graduates with Twitter accounts and eloquent descriptions of their grievances.

Looked at another way however, and the protests take on a more mixed appearance. The Shinawatra party, Pheu Thai has won every election since 2001 in various guises. The Shinawatra's have received large mandates every time they have gone to the people. The protesters claim that their supporters, largely drawn from less well off Thai's living in rural areas, especially the north of the country, have been bribed by Pheu Thai's populist policies and are by implication too stupid or too greedy to be trusted with their choice. Of course, the privileged, urban, middle class members of the protest movement would never subject their own electoral choices to the same scrutiny. The protests racking Bangkok are not driven by a widespread sense of oppression by some dictatorial power, they are been driven by a wealthy elite trying to derail the redistributionist policies of the elected government. The real opponents of democracy are the protesters, who are demanding that parliament be dissolved and an unelected "people's council" take its place. Of course, they probably have some very particular ideas about who should be on the "people's council", and they probably don't involve any supporters of the Shinawatra's.

Thaksin Shinawatra may well have been guilty of the corruption charges which the military used as its excuse to oust him in 2006, and from which he remains in self-imposed exile. His guilt is also irrelevant. The Thai military conducted a coup, another in a very very long line of coups they have attempted or carried out over the last few decades. Yingluck Shinawatra, has taken her brothers place at the head of their political party and also as the leading political figure in opposition to the politicised military. By attempting to get rid of her and her party, and replace Pheu Thai's democratic mandate with an elitist undemocratic regime, the protesters are effectively destroying the foundations of Thailand's fragile democracy. The military has already said it may intervene in yet anther coup if the situation does not improve, i.e. if Pheu Thai is not removed from politics. And yet Pheu Thai and the Shinawatra's are the only people in Thailand with a mandate from the Thai people themselves. The protest movement, for all its noise and flash, represents an elite, privileged minority.

The deepest irony is that the Shinawatra's allegedly populist policies they have used to "bribe" their mostly rural supporters are the kinds of redistributionist policies that many in the west are calling for. Debt relief, food subsidies and increased development funds for farmers, all practical applications of the welfare state and social justice. And yet, where is the outcry in the west as a powerful, entrenched elite uses the positive publicity generated by the Arab Spring to try and take down a government that is actually enacting policies to help the majority of Thai's and alleviate rural poverty? Wherever you stand on the welfare state and redistributionist politics, having middle class university graduates out protesting about the injustice of poor farmers receiving help from the government is a little bit disturbing. What would the reaction be if graduates in Ireland or Britain came onto the streets, complaining that people on social welfare are paid too much, or that social housing and school meals are being used to bribe the less well off members of society? Western governments were disturbingly silent when a secular, wealthy minority in Egypt involved the military in their struggles, thereby overthrowing the democratic government the rest of their countrymen had voted for. Will they now stand by as the same grim acts occur in Thailand? Surely the Thai people deserve better.

Foreign Policy: The art of the contradictory

I have argued previously on this blog that the morally correct action for the international community, in response to the recent crackdown on Gay Rights in Russia, is to boycott the Winter Olympics in Sochi next year. I still hold to this, indeed I see no contradiction between my stance on Sochi and my stance on Syria, where I have argued for a non-interventionist approach. There is a world of difference between nations choosing to boycott a sporting and recreational entertainment event, and choosing to inflict death and destruction on another nation. It is this point, the different effects and consequences of foreign policy and how they affect its implementation that I wish to explore in this post.

Boycotting Sochi might have mild diplomatic repercussions, but it is unlikely that the fallout from nations not participating in a sporting event will be significant. Even if he is extremely sensitive to himself or Russia being made to look bad on the world stage, Vladimir Putin is unlikely to start a game of diplomatic tit-for-tat over Sochi. On the other hand, a military intervention in Syria, which is thankfully starting to look less likely, would have dire diplomatic consequences. Given Russia and Iran’s outright support of the Assad regime, and Russia and China’s strong objections to Western military interventions, to over-ride their wishes, along with the UN, would be a disaster in foreign policy, inflicting huge damage on relations between the interventionist countries (i.e. America, Britain and France) and the rest of the world. Leaving aside the fact that even if there were no diplomatic consequences, intervention through high explosive violence in Syria is morally unjustifiable, it is clear that with Sochi and Syria, the very different backlash in both cases means that each must be treated differently.

While this does not leave much room for absolute moral principles or an absolutely consistent approach to different situations like those in Syria and Russia, it is the only approach that can realistically be taken. Adopting a completely consistent line on foreign policy leads to chaos. If we say that situations like Syria are abhorrent and must be dealt with by military force, than its not just Syria that American should be pointing its cruise missiles at. The Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, the Central African Republic, Libya (again), North and South Sudan, North Korea, Bahrain, Iran and even China and Russia all have similar internal situations which satisfy the same moral criteria as Syria. In each of these countries there is violence, usually government sponsored or enabled, being directed against particular groups or many groups of people, based on ethnic, religious or political affiliations. Obviously intervening in all these countries would be an act of insanity, and yet the principals being touted as justifying intervention in Syria also demand similar intervention in these other nations too.

Even more importantly, intervention in these countries carries the risk of massive and uncontrolled diplomatic and military fallout. For instance, if Western forces decided to intervene in South Sudan, who do they assist? The South Sudanese who have only just shaken off rule by the North, or the tribes in the border area who are fighting the two governments and in some cases may be receiving assistance from them? There are no answers in a situation like this, only death and mayhem. Even more horrifying is the thought of Western intervention against somewhere like North Korea. In this case there would not just be diplomatic consequences; North Korea’s enormous armed forces and nuclear arsenal mean that there would be immediate and fatal consequences for a very large number of people in South Korea and beyond.

Simply put it is a truly reprehensible act for any national government to endanger its own citizens (let alone the citizens of other countries) for the sake of soothing an uneasy conscience. To use the most obvious example, if America was to intervene in Syria directly, the potential backlash by the Syrian government against American bases in the middle east, and the potential for terrorists gaining a presence in a subsequently destabilised Syria and attacking American targets represent true “moral hazard”. America’s potential involvement in Syria puts its citizens, both military and civilian alike in danger. This is an unacceptable risk to take for the sake of any principle. The American government’s first duty, like all national governments, is to its own people. To endanger their lives through reckless foreign escapades like Syria, even for the most impeccable humanitarian reasons, is a violation of this duty.

This is my argument at its simplest. The diplomatic, political and military hazards of any foreign policy effort must be weighed up, and their cost to the nation assessed. If these costs are too high, the true moral imperative is for governments to stay out and protect their own citizens. Hence, while boycotting Sochi is a relatively risk free exercise and an good opportunity to avoid tarnishing the west’s most dearly held values, in Syria the risks are simply too high. In a general sense, Sochi is a low risk endeavour, while Syria and other situations like it are just too risky. To avoid these risks, it is necessary to sacrifice consistency in foreign policy. In the end, foreign policy is all about taking calculated risks, and so it is filled with contradictions. The only principle that cannot be contradicted is that of protecting your own citizens.

Syria Redux: The consequences of intervention

The latest reports of chemical weapons being used in Syria are another instance where taking a moment to step back and think about the conflict is the best thing we can do. A few things to consider:

1) Chemical weapons change nothing.

In a conflict which has already claimed over 100,000 lives, fatalities from chemical weapons are a drop in the ocean. Chemical weapons are horrific. Bombs, bullets, shrapnel, artillery shells and sniper fire are equally horrific, and they are already being used on a vast scale in the Syrian conflict. To pretend that somehow chemical weapons are “worse” than conventional ones is a travesty. War, violence and death are uniform horrors, irrespective of how they are inflicted. The Syrian conflict has been horrendous from day one, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future. Chemical weapons are simply another facet of this awful conflict.

2) Even more important, the West/UN/whoever cannot get international backing to intervene.

The Chinese and Russian governments have made it absolutely clear they will neither support nor tolerate any attempt to effect a regime change in Syria, even under the guise of “peacekeeping”. This is not going to change today, tomorrow, next month, next year or ever. The Chinese and Russian governments are committed to the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. This is mainly because they have some questionable domestic policies of their own that would make them vulnerable if such interventions became common place. This means that they are absolutely opposed to any UN action that would involve intervention in Syria. There will be no UN sanctioned “liberation” of Syria while China and Russia hold seats on the security council. Moreover, the Assad regime’s allies in the region, particularly Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon will oppose, possibly with military force, any intervention, and we can be sure that regimes like that of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Omar al Bashir in Sudan and a host of other petty dictatorships will strenuously oppose intervention on pretexts that could just as easily be used against them.

Which brings me to my third and most important point.

3) Any intervention in Syria will be a disaster of unimaginable proportions.

There are so many ways in which a Western intervention in Syria will go wrong that I cannot do justice to them here, but a brief overview will do.

Hezbollah and Iran have actively and in Hezbollah’s case directly intervened in Syria. They literally have “skin in the game”. Any Western intervention, and that includes airstrikes, will involve direct military action against Hezbollah troops and Iranian assets in Syria. This will instantaneously kill any chance of Iran agreeing to negotiate over its nuclear programme, reignite the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict in southern Lebanon and kill the recently revived Israeli-Palestinian peace process stone dead. Renewed conflict on Israel’s border with Lebanon will inevitably spread to its border with Syria, drawing Israel, with its undisclosed nuclear arsenal and legion of enemies in the Islamic world into the conflict.

Moreover, even if Iran does not respond directly by military means to a Western strike/invasion of Syria, the Islamic Republic will surely take steps to retaliate against the West, including possibly attempting to interdict oil shipments through the strait of Hormuz. Western intervention in Syria also has the potential to exacerbate conflict in Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq will be given a new lease of life by a fresh Western act of aggression against an Islamic country, and it already has allies among the more extreme elements of the Syrian rebel groups. The prospect of Iraq based militants getting involved in Syria on a large scale against Western troops raises the spectre of the chaos in Syria spreading to Iraq. In which case, in a cruel irony, Western troops may find themselves back in Iraq having only recently declared the country “secure” and left in a hurry.

Finally, Western intervention in Syria will severely complicate the West’s relationship with other countries, particularly Egypt. If Western powers will intervene on the side of Islamist rebels against a brutal military dictatorship in Syria, why not in Egypt, which is heading towards an identical situation? How will the Muslim Brotherhood and the military in Egypt react if Western forces attack Syria? How will other regional players, like Hamas in Gaza, Al Qaeda in Yemen, the Taliban in Pakistan/Afghanistan and the Kurds in Syria, Turkey and Iraq react? There are a lot of vested interests at play in Syria, and a ham-fisted intervention by the West could quite possibly bring them all into the conflict.

Finally, an intervention by Western armies with their immensely powerful air forces, armies and copious amounts of high explosives will trigger another exodus of refugees from Syria that will dwarf the current one. Thousands of people have crossed the border into Iraqi Kurdistan in the last week alone. Over a million Syrians have fled the country already. Another spike in numbers could overwhelm neighbouring countries like Jordan, which are already struggling to cope with the influx.

As I have said previously, bombs and bullets added to yet more bombs and bullets will not solve anything. Western military action will just get more people, and potentially many many more people killed. If other countries wish to act to help the Syrian people, they can do genuinely good things, like assisting the refugees from the conflict, and the countries that have take them in. Let the West and the world build roads, schools, hospitals and sadly, orphanages for the victims of the conflict. Let them send doctors, nurses, teachers and aid workers instead of soldiers, fighter pilots and more death. Help is something you give people, not something you fire at them. We can only hope that the countries currently calling for “intervention” in Syria will learn this lesson sooner rather than later.

Jordan: The forgotten sanctuary

In all the recent talk and debate around arming some of the multiple Syrian rebel groupings fighting to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, the discussion has focused on military issues. How to get the weapons in? How to prevent them falling into the wrong hands? Will they be enough to topple Assad? Indeed, from the very start of the Syrian conflict, the focus especially by the West has been on its military aspects. All talk of helping the Syrian people and alleviating the suffering caused by the conflict has focused on fighting, on arming people, on trying to affect change by force as quickly as possible. At some point, helping other countries has become synonymous with violence.

There are, at last estimate, 1.7 million Syrians living as refugees outside their country, mainly in Turkey and Jordan, along with Lebanon and Iraq. Lebanon currently hosts the most displaced Syrians, with Jordan and Turkey close behind. Of the three however, Jordan faces the most serious problems arising from the influx of refugees. This is in no small part because Jordan already houses 1.9 million Palestinians and nearly half a million Iraqis, refugees from earlier conflicts. For decades, since its unsuccessful participation in the Six Day War in 1967, Jordan has been a haven of tranquility in the Middle East. The country has repaired its relationship with Israel and maintained good relations with the outside world. Until recently the economy was growing and prosperity expanding to more of the population. But there are also serious problems.

Jordan’s refugee influx from its neighbours has strained already overstretched water supplies, along with the provision of healthcare, education and basic amenities like electricity and energy. Jordan’s stability and open border policy have made it a very attractive destination for refugees, and now all the things which made Jordan a success story in the region are starting to drag it under, as more and more people flood across the country’s borders. The Jordanian population is only 6 million, barely more than Ireland’s, yet by some estimates by the end of this year over a million Syrians will be added to that. Jordan simply cannot cope with this quantity of refugees.

Rather than sending more guns to perpetrate more violence and more death in Syria, the international community, especially those countries like the US who seem to be getting more and more involved in the conflict, should focus on making a positive difference to the situation by helping these refugees and the countries sheltering them. According to a recent report by the Guardian, the United States has given $228.5 million spread across all the countries in the region dealing with refugees from Syria. Given that by some estimates the US spent over $1 Trillion on the war in Iraq, surely it can afford to give even a fraction of a percent of this sum to help Jordan, and make a real, positive contribution to a regional crisis.

If the last decade of strife in the Middle East has proved anything, it has proved that violence is never an answer to internal conflicts in other countries. The international community can make a difference right now, by sending real aid to all the countries in the region, but especially to Jordan, who are actually helping the Syrian people by sheltering them from the conflict.

 

The Jordanian people have opened their borders and their homes to refugees from surrounding regions. They have not turned people away at the border, despite the intense pressure being placed on their economy and their public services. And despite the fact that they are making the most constructive and positive contribution to the Syrian conflict, all the West wants to focus on is sending in guns to Syria, rather than helping them.

Jordan, along with other countries in the Middle East, is helping in a very real sense to lessen the suffering and death caused by the Syrian conflict, at great cost to itself. The real heroes of the Syrian civil war will not be the rebels, or the government, or the outside powers who armed them, they will be the countries who let in tens of thousand of frightened refugees, who clothed and fed them, who cared for them, who tried to give them the same services they give their own citizens.

If the international community and especially the West, wish to help alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people and help to limit the damage caused by the conflict, they only need to look to Jordan. The means to make a difference are already there. All the Jordanian people need is help to do it.

Stephen Fry, Sochi and Stalin 2.0

Stephen Fry is right when he calls Vladimir Putin’s regime the “new autocracy” of Russia. Putin’s dictatorial repressions extend beyond Russia’s embattled LGBT community. His suppression of dissent and opposition, the suspicious deaths of journalists and activists under his regime and the politically motivated trials of Alexei Navalny and others are all part of his regime's efforts to keep itself in power and in control. And behind it all is Putin himself.

Vladimir Putin is Josef Stalin 2.0. He’s smarter, more subtle and less paranoid, but equally brutal, equally savage and equally dangerous. Where Stalin had show trials, mass purges and collectivisation, Putin has corruption charges, disappearances and manipulative nationalistic slogans. Vladimir Putin is a 21st century dictator. He has learned the crucial lesson that his 20th century predecessor never learned. You don’t need to have all of the power in the state, or to silence all of your critics. You just need to have enough of the power, in the right areas, and to neutralise only those critics you can’t buy off, smear or paint as being unpatriotic.

Putin is at the centre of a power network that embraces both state repression and state corruption. Roubles serve where the secret police might be too obvious. Fabricated charges are used instead of regime show trials. And the regime’s most serious foes die in fortuitous accidents, in cases that are never properly investigated. Putin doesn’t need to use the police to suppress dissent, he just needs them not to do their job when he has it silenced by other means.

I have always held that getting involved with dubious dictators and autocrats like Putin is not the business or in the interest of the West. It leads to what can only be described as morally compromising situations. Russia is a case in point. By engaging with Putin and sending delegations to the Games in Sochi, Western governments are saying that the values they hold dear like equal rights, equality before the law, transparent government and at a basic level some semblance of democracy are just talking points, and that dictators like Putin can do as they please and still get to preen and prance on the world stage.

While Western governments have no business getting involved in the internal affairs of other countries (see my posts on Syria and Iraq for that particular can of worms) non-involvement most definitely includes not giving despots like Putin a platform like the Olympics. As Stephen Fry points out, witness Berlin 1936 for the results appeasement of this sort. When I say don’t engage with Russia, I mean it in the fullest sense of the word. For obvious reasons, its enormous nuclear arsenal being the main one, Russia is in no danger of military intervention by the West. That does not mean the default position should be to ignore the Putin regime's appalling crimes and blithely give them carte blanche in Sochi.

All nations who value human dignity should boycott the Winter Games of 2014. Putin’s particular brand of despotism should not be given international sanction with such a high profile event. We cannot realistically influence what happens inside Russia, not with Putin’s iron grip on power. But we can deny him the exposure and international approval that he craves. Let him fume and rant, and claim that there is a western conspiracy against Russia. But let him do it without a world stage to do it from.

The world should disengage from Russia in every sense. Boycott Sochi. Downgrade Russia’s membership of the UN and other global organisations. Putin’s thuggish regime is so far gone that Russia’s membership of these bodies is not only hopeless in terms of changing anything, it is downright farcical. Stop holding international summits in Russia, and start making its participation in others like the G8 and G20 dependent on reforms. Of course Putin, much like his dictatorial predecessors won’t reform. But thats the point. If someone won’t change their ways, you stop engaging with them. You isolate them.

Putin is a dictator, and like all dictators he will be hard if not impossible to dislodge. His crimes will undoubtedly continue. By boycotting the Sochi Games, the international community can start disentangling itself from Putin’s crimes, and stop giving Russia’s latest autocrat a platform for his tyranny.

Syria and Iraq: Painful lessons in history and restraint

Syria and Iraq share many things in addition to an extensive and poorly policed border. They are both post-colonial states, constructed arbitrarily from an eclectic mix of racial and religious groups. They both suffer from serious tensions between these different groups, and have a history of repression by one or more of these groups. In the case of Iraq it was the repression of the Shia Muslims majority and Kurdish minority by another minority, the Sunni Muslims. In the case of Syria it was a neat reversal, with a Shia led “coalition of minorities” repressing the Sunni majority. Of course, this is a simplification. Inter-ethnic and religious relations in both nations are complicated and fraught, with questionable acts on both sides. In both cases however, pre-existing conflict between factions has been immeasurably worsened by outside intervention.

Iraq is the more well known and spectacular case. The US led invasion of 2003 was supposed to topple the dictator Saddam Hussein and establish democracy. What it succeeded in doing was lift the lid on simmering tensions, which Hussein had, with unquestionably vile methods, successfully repressed.  The result was a bloody civil conflict from the invasion on, with a series of peaks and lulls, and which now looks as though it is reigniting. The repression by the Sunni minority Hussein led has been replaced by savage all out conflict, and the fragmentation of Iraq. Far from building the country into a liberal, democratic society, Western intervention may in the long term have succeeded only in destroying it altogether.

The intervention in Iraq has not only failed to meet any of its objectives, it has made the situation worse. To the horrific death toll of the Iraqis themselves, the Western forces have managed to add thousands of their own troops. The brutality of Saddam Hussein has been replaced by the chaotic, dysfunctional and semi-despotic regime of Nouri al-Maliki. Violence, which under Hussein was kept in the hands of the state, is now in the hands of any and all groups who have an axe to grind. Coalition troops have died in vain, and the horrendous violence now unfolding in Iraq is potentially worse than anything Hussein’s regime could have done.

This leads us to Syria, where western intervention is again being mooted, albeit in a more limited fashion. Britain, France and factions within the American government seem to believe that if they simply outsource their intervention by arming the Syrian rebels, they will avoid all of the disasters of Iraq. This is, quite simply, a complete inability to understand the nature of their failure in Iraq. Iraq was a failure not because the right side didn't win; Iraq was a failure because western countries got involved in a conflict they did not understand. There were no right sides in Iraq, just competing factions looking for an advantage by any means necessary.

Likewise in Syria, there are no “good guys” or “bad guys”. There are simply competing factions, with their own goals, agendas and particular ideologies. The obsession with whether or not any arms sent over might fall into the hands of al-Qaeda or its affiliates misses the point entirely. Whoever gets the arms, be it the Free Syrian Army, the al-Nusra Front or any of the other multifarious rebel groups in Syria, will use them to carve out their own victory at the expense of all the other factions. The civil war in Syria is not a conflict between the government of Bashar al-Assad and a rebel movement. It is a multi-sided free for all, with ethnic and religious complexities that makes the Balkans conflict look clear cut by comparison.

Sending weapons in isn’t going to hasten a rebel victory, it will just add more bullets to the fighting, and get more people, including civilians killed. Even if by some miracle the particular group of Syrian rebels which the West has arbitrarily chosen to favour get all of the weapons and don’t lose any of them, they will promptly use them to establish their own political solution, at the expense of all the other factions. Western bullets will be used to achieve decidedly non-Western goals. When you attempt to break up a bar fight, you don’t just give the one guy you happen to like a baseball bat to try and end it quickly. In the case of Syria, the West has stepped into the bar, looked around, and started tossing in meat cleavers randomly.

This kind of misguided policy has two outcomes. Either the those intervening (i.e. the West) get stuck in wholesale and end up adding their own casualties to an already bloody conflict (as happened in Iraq), or they stand back, add more guns to the situation and then watch as yet again the violence and suffering spike. Given the stubborn refusal of the Western powers to learn from their mistakes, we can dread equally fruitless attempts at making things better in the rapidly deteriorating situations in Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and possibly Tunisia and Lebanon. Let us hope, for the sake of all the innocent victims of the Middle Eastern conflicts, the people of the West chose to learn the lessons their governments won’t.