Dante's 21st Century Inferno

Syria, Tom Walkom writes, has become the most dangerous place on  earth. It is now the centre of several intersecting rivalries. Consider what has happened since the war began seven years ago:

The Syrian conflict began seven years ago as a popular rebellion against a dictatorial regime. It soon became a civil war with religious overtones before morphing into a series of proxy wars.

Saudi Arabia and its allies funded Sunni militias (some of them terrorist) fighting Assad. The U.S. tried, with little success, to find moderate rebel groups that it could arm and fund.

Kurdish militias in Syria made deals — first with Assad and later with the U.S. — designed to help them eventually carve out an independent state.

Turkey funded and armed its own militias, in part to maintain influence in a country that historically was part of its empire, in part to counter the Kurds.

Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah intervened on Assad’s side to protect their Shiite co-religionists from the Sunni militias and to expand Tehran’s influence in the region.

Israel intervened to counter Hezbollah and Iran.

The U.S. and its allies, including Canada, eventually intervened directly to fight the extremists known as Daesh, or the Islamic State. Russia intervened directly to prevent the Assad regime from collapsing.

It would be wise for the leader of any country to think carefully before entering such an inferno. But wisdom is not Donald Trump's strong suite. That's why Secretary of Defence James Mattis --  with help from Britain and France -- ordered a very limited and surgical strike last week. In the end, the strike will change nothing. But it will allow some people to salve their consciences. They will tell themselves that they did something.

One really concrete step would be for the international community to stop selling arms to the various factions. Those war wagons we sold to Saudi Arabia sent the wrong message.

Image: Gil John Rodriquez

No Simple Answers

The United States and France appear ready to attack Syria. If that happens, Iran says it is ready to attack Israel. And Israel has atomic weapons. Bob Rae wrote this week that:

A couple of years ago I had the chance to meet Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres, Israel’s prime minister and president, respectively, in separate meetings. The subject was Iran. For Mr. Netanyahu, the issue was clear: Iran is arming itself with a nuclear capacity, and the rest of the world had to be prepared to “act.” For Mr. Peres, the conversation went in a different direction. We know Iran is up to no good. But, if we bomb Iran, what happens the next day? What are the consequences?

As the drumbeat for a response to what seems to be a clear violation of the 1925 ban on chemical weapons grows louder, no one seems to be asking, "What happens on the day after?" Rae wrote:

There’s always time for “consequential thinking.” The world wanted an international constabulary after the end of the Second World War but we were unable to make it happen. Real politics intervened. There is a crying need for a continuing, thoughtful, effective response to the terrible loss of life in Syria, most of it at the hands of its own government. But let us not make the mistake of assuming that missiles alone will resolve the crisis or even assuage our consciences. And don’t make the mistake of being ambushed by our own rhetoric. Killing civilians by bombing them with aircraft is also a crime.

You would think that after Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, we would be thinking about consequences. Surely our historical memory goes back that far. But going to war clouds the mind. Even thinking about it has that effect.

First and foremost, we need to remember what Harry Patch -- the last surviving veteran of World War I -- said before his death in 2009: "War," he said, "is organised murder, and nothing else."

Private Patch should remind us that there are no simple answers to the crisis in Syria.


This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.