generalspeaking

Too Many Times Stung

The conundrum that is represented by intervention in the affairs of the Middle East seems a puzzle not amenable to reasonable debate, to theory and proposed results, to any manner of logical explication or expectation. Always anticipate the unexpected. And now, added to that can be the caution that if any country outside of the Middle East plans to be slightly involved they should also anticipate full embroilment in a manner they could not conceivably imagine beforehand.

The U.S. knows full well what happens when it ventures into the geography where tribalism, warring factions, vicious sectarian hatreds and political-geographic spoils along with the byzantine jockeying of tyrants, dictators, autocrats and their totalitarian coalitions result in. There is a unifying body that meets on occasion to discuss matters of geographic moment and they call themselves the Arab League. All problems relating to Arab-Muslim events to be debated within.

Consensus sought and occasionally found, but not necessarily. Consensus is usually arrived at with little need for extraneous debate with respect to the irritating presence within a Muslim-majority geography of a Jewish state. Not so much with the issue of conflict within a state itself when a minority-led government violates the most basic human rights of its majority-population civilians, as in Syria at the present time.

But even there, with a general agreement that the slaughter of civilians by the Alawite Baathist government of President Bashar al-Assad targeting the Sunni rebels and the "terrorist" Sunni jihadis that have come fully equipped with hatred and slaughter of Shias in mind, uncertainty takes the day. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the oil-wealthy Gulf States who traditionally have spent their riches in wild excess have always complacently felt that the West should offer financial assistance to their poor brethren.

And so it is with conflict that regularly roils the region. It was not Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Qatar who collectively assembled their well-armed militaries to persuade Saddam Hussein that it would be in Iraq's best interests, after all, to evacuate their presence from tiny oil-rich Kuwait, but the United States, whom they joined in the enterprise. The later ill-fated and poorly-decided American second invasion of Iraq mired the United States and its allies in a timeless, divisive, costly and bloody unending war.

The initial invasion of Afghanistan and the routing of al-Qaeda to free that country from its Taliban oppressors similarly left another coalition of the willing, NATO and UN troops futilely battling a resurgent insurgency inflamed with religious virtue and death-mongering, determined to retake what they had conquered, to further abase and violate the human rights of a people that had long since grown accustomed to living a medieval lifestyle in a 21st-Century world.

And now, here once again, is the United States, the world's arbitrator, faced with yet another one of those spontaneously bitter slaughters where a feeble protest gave birth to a civil war, and another Arab Muslim government saw fit to unleash hell on its people. The wealth of the Arab League rendered a paltry aid to the disorganized, tribally-agonized rebels who gained by the entry of jihadists, realizing too late that their Syria would no longer be theirs if the jihadists prevailed.

The hatred emanating from the Arab world toward the United States is endemic and pervasively reliable. It undergoes rebirth each time Middle East powers plead for intervention to halt one of their own in destroying one of their own. "First of all a punitive strike against the regime. Then political and military support for the Free Syrian Army. For the Assad regime enjoys total support from Russia, Hezbollah and Iran. We lack everything. Our allies have given us nothing of what we want", urged Ahmad al0-Jarba, of the Syrian opposition coalition.

In Tehran, Syria's sponsor, the Islamic Republic of Iran, sneers at the incompetence and incoherence of the West, and in particular the fumbling past interventions of the United States with its hyperbolic assurances that precedence and danger requires its response. General Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps claims an attack on Syria "will mean the imminent destruction of Israel. Syria will become the second Vietnam for the United States."

And in London, Jihad Allaham, speaker of the Syrian People's Assembly, implored British lawmakers to oppose the use of force: "We ask you to stop the rush to reckless action", for a military strike would breach international law. And it is most encouraging to know that the Syrian regime is so concerned with the breaching of international law; that being so, presents as proof positive it would never, ever have used chemical agents against its people.

Persuasive enough to ensure that Prime Minister Cameron did not get the green light he sought to militarily accompany the United States in punishing Syria, leaving the field open to France to stand by. "We have concluded that the Syrian government in fact carried these out. And if that's so, then there need to be international consequences", asserted American President Barack Obama.

And so the world waits for a reprise of Levantine history of the modern age.

Labels: Arab League, Atrocities, Conflict, Defence, Intervention, Syria, United States

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, August 31, 2013