Leo McKinstry
West’s stance on Syria is undermining it. President Assad may be a cruel dictator, just as Stalin was in 1941, but he is one of the few secular leaders in the Middle East who is actually taking on the malignant horror of jihadism.
By continually demanding regime change and by urging Russia to end its support for Assad, the governments of Britain and the US are in practice colluding with the Islamist rebels. Effectively, our leaders are joining in the drive to extend the barbaric Muslim caliphate into Syria.
The morally inverted approach of Britain and the US makes a mockery of the political rhetoric about the war on terror. Hundreds of brave British men and women from our armed forces have died in the struggle against Al Qaeda, the Taliban and IS since 9/11, yet here we have the utter farce in Syria of our Government siding with our sworn enemies.
To justify this reckless folly, the Foreign Office has often talked of the “moderate” rebels in the anti-Assad movement. These were the insurgents that William Hague was so keen to support when he was Foreign Secretary. But this was self-delusion. The “moderates” were a figment of his imagination.
The true battle is between Assad and the jihadists, and the reality is that it would be a disaster for the West if the latter proved victorious. On women’s rights, respect for Christians and treatment of minorities Assad’s rule is preferable to the savage totalitarianism of IS and Al Qaeda.
He is, of course, repellent in many respects, but then the experience of countries like Iraq and Egypt in recent years is that pluralist, liberal democracy cannot function in the Islamic Arab world. The so-called Arab Spring – naively cheered on by deluded Westerners – just led to more bloodshed, extremism and discord.
British and American enthusiasts for Assad’s downfall like to trumpet their supposed compassion but by their actions they have prolonged the Syrian civil war and increased the death toll. The quickest way to end a conflict is for one side to win it yet the Islamists’ useful idiots in the West have helped to prevent a decisive military triumph for Assad.
DEFENCE Secretary Michael Fallon has taken to boasting about the massive £2.4billion in humanitarian aid that Britain has provided to deal with the fallout from the civil war. The bill would be far lower if the West had not meddled so foolishly and the war had ended.
Where is the moral consistency in the development of British policy on Syria? Given the logic of the anti-Assad agitation, why don’t we take on Zimbabwean tyrant Robert Mugabe, the Saudi royal family or China for its human rights abuses?
We have no national interest in the overthrow of Assad. He has never threatened us, unlike his opponents. Almost a century ago in 1922, when the Liberal prime minister Lloyd George was itching to embark on a so-called humanitarian war against Turkey, the Tory leader Bonar Law said, “We cannot be the policeman of the world.”
Those words should be remembered amid all the fatuous current talk about “red lines”, regime change and anti-Russian sanctions.