Dealing in Syria

To The Guardian

Syria is smashed, its cities in rubble, half its population displaced, and to bring this about Bashar al-assad has had to mortgage his country’s independence to Russia and Iran. And Turkey is helping itself to a new security belt in the north. Assad has failed his country and people, and should be held accountable for this and his myriad crimes.

Merely pointing the finger at Western failures in Syria misses the full picture. No country and no actor comes out of this hell with any credit at all. Moreover, the most damaging external interventions in Syria in terms of destruction and killing were non-western, those of Russia, Iran, Turkey and Islamic State. The Gulf states ran a largely inept proxy war as well.

The question now is, after so much destruction and suffering, how can we give some meaning to the hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrians killed in these wars? Reconstruction and reconciliation are vital, but so too is political change and more inclusive government. Chris Doyle, Director, Caabu (Council for Arab-british Understanding)

To The Guardian

Matthew d’ancona suggests that but for “sanctimonious procrastination” caused by memories of the Iraq war, the UK could be part of a righteous Western military effort to confront the regime of Bashar al-assad. It must surely have occurred to him that if Britain and the US had not led the attack on Iraq, then Syria might well not be where it is today. And if the West charges gung-ho into yet another major Middle Eastern conflict, the unforeseen consequences may be even greater and more grotesque than those of the 2003 invasion. Joe Mccarthy, Ireland