West’s blind eye to Assad cruelty had gone on too long
THE great shame about yesterday’s strike on an air base from which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is believed to have launched a chemical weapons attack is that it did not happen four years ago. How different Syria might be now had Labour’s Ed Miliband not convinced the House of Commons to vote against retaliation to Assad’s earlier chemical weapons strike.
In 2013 Islamic State (IS) had yet to establish its territory and Russian President Vladimir Putin had yet to provide military support to Assad against IS. There is a genuine chance that Syria’s dictator could have been overthrown by a relatively benign assortment of rebels.
As a result of the Commons’ vote former US president Barack Obama pulled back from military action on Assad. Miliband was lauded by some as a hero who had avoided landing the West in the sort of quagmire seen in Iraq after George W Bush’s overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
But the result of appeasement towards Assad is there for all to see. What kind of psychopath leader launches a chemical weapons attack against his own people, snuffing the life out of children who are supposed to be the future of his country?
ASSAD’S chemical strike was a war crime, pure and simple. As for Russia’s preposterous story that the deadly chemicals were released in a raid on a stash of rebels’ weapons it can be dismissed.
The one Western journalist who gained access to the site of Tuesday’s strike on the town of Khan Sheikhoun observed that there was no sign of rebel weapons, chemical or otherwise. The building struck by the missile contained just grain and manure. Yet contamination was to be found on the remains of a Syrian Army missile.
President Donald Trump acted decisively but without undue haste. The US waited to establish facts about the strike and consulted with the British Government.
After years of drift under Obama, US foreign policy is back where it should be: leaving the world’s dictators in no doubt that there are boundaries beyond which their activities will not be tolerated. And this puts to bed once and for all the absurd idea that Trump is Putin’s puppet.
All this said, Friday’s strike is as far as action should go for now. Other Western governments should do what ours has done: give unequivocal support for what Trump has done and urge extreme caution against follow-up strikes.
This is not out of any deference for Assad. He can be under no illusions that if he is not killed in this war he will be called to answer for his war crimes.
But for the US to escalate their actions into a campaign for regime change would risk an even worse outcome than Assad. As Iraq showed, the problem is not in removing a dictator, it lies in what happens afterwards. If we created a power vacuum in Syria it could be filled by IS. And if not IS it could be another Islamist group.
And of course we would be risking far more than the continued rise of Islamism. However much we might disapprove of Putin it cannot be ignored that he leads a powerful, nuclear-armed nation with the ability to overrun Eastern Europe.
Anything that risks war against Russia cannot be contemplated. When it comes to dealing with dictators in the Middle East there is no right answer. All options are bad, it is just that some are worse than others.
As Bush’s attempt to construct a liberal democracy in Iraq showed, it might seem obvious to us that people would seize the chance for freedom but that is not how local people see it. What many Iraqis saw when US tanks took to the streets was an invading army to be fought through guerrilla action.
BUT if we turn a blind eye to dictators who crush their own people the outcome is no better. All we do is encourage other dictators. To take no action to save people when you have the power to do is immoral.
The third way – where, as in Libya, we help rebel groups via bombing raids but without putting our soldiers on the ground – is not any better.
Six years on from former prime minister David Cameron’s campaign to hasten the end of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya remains a failed state. Much of the deposed leader’s arsenal is in the hands of factions – including IS – you would not want to trust with air pistols let alone a rocket launcher.
As for Syria, the least-worst option is what Trump did on Friday morning: to respond to the use of chemical weapons by launching a strike on Assad’s ability to carry out further such attacks.
We should follow it up by increasing our efforts to help Syrian refugees, not least the six million displaced within their own country. We should also examine the possibility of establishing safe havens inside Syria.
President Trump is unpredictable but that is where he will hopefully leave it for now. He will impress a lot of his critics if his strong response to last week’s war crime is followed by discretion.
‘President Trump acted decisively’