America is our ally — but we mustn’t be its poodle

The hawks and ‘neocons’ on both sides of the Atlantic who supported our involvement in two disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are clearly delighted.

On the election trail, Donald Trump campaigned on an ‘America First’ ticket which promised a new era of reduced U. S. involvement in overseas adventures. As President, however, with his missile strike on Syria, he has done exactly the opposite.

And those ‘neocons’, many of whom are serving in the administration and still unrepentant over Iraq, or in powerful positions in the U.S Congress where Trump needs their support to push through legislation, are back in business.

The trouble is that Trump’s reversal of policy risks a terrifying escalation in global conflict. Of course we are their ally and should show support, but it is the job of an ally sometimes to urge restraint. Yet Britain is slavishly going along with Trump’s aggression in exactly the same way as when we were America’s poodle over the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

There is, of course, no question that the use of chemical weapons on innocent children – or indeed anyone – is an abhorrent war crime.

And, yes, Trump made a powerfully emotive case for teaching the Assad regime a lesson with a ‘one- off’ and ‘proportionate’ strike at the airbase from which U.S. intelligence says the chemical attack was launched.

But far from being a ‘one-off’, matters have already escalated alarmingly, with talk of regime change horribly reminiscent of the invasion of Iraq as well as the fall of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011 which led to Libya’s collapse into complete anarchy.

Tensions with Assad’s ally President Putin have been ratcheted up as well, with Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson yesterday declaring that he was ‘toxifying the image of Russia’ and demanding fresh sanctions against the country – a demand humiliatingly rebuffed by the G7 group of nations at a meeting in Italy.

By declaring our unconditional support for the U.S. in this way, we could easily find ourselves dragged into heavy American military intervention in Syria as we hang on to Trump’s coat-tails.

AhIGhLY influential Chinese commentator this week relished the prospect of the U.S. getting bogged down in yet another Middle eastern adventure: ‘If the US gets trapped in Syria, how can Trump make America great again?,’ he asked, before adding, ‘As a result, China will be able to achieve its peaceful rise. even though we say we oppose the bombing, deep in our hearts we are happy.’

The truth is that Trump’s policy on Syria has turned on a sixpence. When Syria used chemical weapons in 2013, Obama declared he was ready to authorise a military strike against the country but would refer the matter to Congress which did not vote for it.

At the time, Trump took to Twitter to warn him: ‘ What will we get from Syria but more debt and a possible long term conflict? Obama needs congressional approval’.

A striking incoherence has also characterised British policy towards Syria, particularly under Boris Johnson.

Last year, before he became Foreign Secretary, Johnson celebrated the Assad Army’s reconquest of ancient Palmyra as ‘a victory for archaeology’ after ISIS had destroyed many of its treasured Roman buildings during its occupation of the city.

even two months ago as Foreign Secretary, Johnson recalled an Iraqi guide who, speaking of the late Saddam hussein, told him: ‘It is better sometimes to have a tyrant than not to have a ruler at all.’

Yet now he is demanding regime change in Syria – even though all the evidence from our misbegotten adventures in Iraq and Libya show that regime change leads to chaos and carnage.

Johnson’s determination yesterday to get his G7 colleagues to impose enhanced sanctions on Russian generals involved in Syria was also illiterate – which is why it was rejected out of hand by Germany and Italy.

It would have surely put the Russian president’s back up to such an extent that it would have completely undermined U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s imminent visit to Moscow to persuade Putin to think again about backing Assad.

The fact is that, at the moment, we have seen no concrete evidence that Assad personally ordered this latest chemical attack – couldn’t it just as easily have been a rogue local commander?

And while demands for Assad to be deposed continue, there have been no viable suggestions as to who might replace him to ensure peace returns to the country. Unpalatable though it may appear, he seems likely to be the only person able to bring peace to that benighted country – albeit it by crushing his enemies.

From this episode Johnson emerges as a lightweight figure, with little real influence and an erratic grasp of what truly is at stake.

To understand the risks of Britain’s involvement, we need to consider the cause of the civil war in Syria and why it has lasted a full six years and counting.

Soon after it started in 2011 as a result of the so-called Arab Spring, it degenerated into a deadly proxy war, involving Russia and Iran and hizbollah Shiites on President Assad’s side, and Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey helping the Sunni Islamist anti-Assad rebels. Many of these rebel groups are extremists – allies and proxies of Al Qaeda, which will grow stronger as IS weakens. One perennial Western delusion throughout this conflict has been that there is anyone left resembling a ‘moderate’ opposition group to step into Assad’s shoes if he goes.

The slaughter has also been on both sides – we constantly read reports of at least ‘400,000’ dead but that actually includes anywhere between 114,474 and 163,753 combatants on the Assad regime’s side.

Despite these losses, Assad’s forces and their allies in hizbollah and various Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani Shia militias, have scored major successes against the rebels, under the cover of brutal Russian air power.

YESTERDAY, Russian planes dropped thermite and phosphorous bombs whose effects are just as bad as chemical munitions.

The Assad regime’s success was best symbolised by the fall of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city to his control. It was horrible to watch – innocents were killed in vast numbers, and surviving rebels can expect to find themselves at the mercy of Assad’s industrial scale torture machine.

I have no illusions about what an Assad victory entails. But then, I would not like to be an Alawite (Assad’s own Shia sect) or a Christian Syrian if the rebel jihadis win either.

The point to remember amid all this horror is that this war will not end if we in the West get sucked into it ever deeper – it will only get worse, as the proxy powers behind it begin shooting at each other.

Britain should not be indulging Trump’s incautious policy in Syria, which threatens to derail everything he promised to do for ordinary Americans at home while risking an armed clash with Russia.

Theresa May should also ensure that her gadfly Foreign Secretary does not divert her attention from the vital roles she must play here for the just-about managing people and on Brexit.

hasn’t anyone learned the lesson of Libya – which is still in anarchy, six years after we intervened to fix the country by deposing of its very unsavoury tyrant?