Matt Carr 09 September 2015. Posted in News
Let's
not be manipulated by outpouring of public solidarity with refugees into
believing that bombing is a solution to the horrors unfolding.
IN
LESS than a week, the British government has frantically changed its line on
Europe’s refugee crisis like a twitchy gambler shuffling cards in the hope that
the right one comes up.
First
David Cameron rejected the notion that accepting more refugees was a ‘solution’
to the crisis, as if anybody had ever said it was.
Then,
wrongfooted by an unlikely eruption of humanitarian fervour from the British
tabloids, he agreed to take in a quota of 20,000 ‘vulnerable’ Syrian refugees
over the next five years – though Syrian and other refugees already in Europe
will not be allowed into the UK since that would only encourage others to
follow them.
And
now, with barely a pause for breath, Cameron is coolly plotting to transform
the refugee crisis into a new casus belli in Syria and a justification for a
new round of ‘humanitarian’ bombing against ISIS
That
won’t be the end of it however, since Osborne warned at the weekend that ‘ You
have got to deal with the problem at source which is this evil Assad regime and
the Isis terrorists.’
Yesterday
the creepy neocon former defense secretary Liam Fox – a man who has never seen
a war he didn’t like – was on Channel 4 News calling for the creation of a no
fly zone to enforce safe havens in Syria that would protect ‘vulnerable people’
from ISIS.
When
Fox talks about protecting vulnerable people one can only stifle a hysterical
giggle – coupled with a certain feeling of nausea. This is the man who
supported the war in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War, Israel’s Gaza
wars, and favoured military action against Iran.
These
wars not only failed to protect ‘vulnerable people’, they also killed a great
deal of them, even as they generated refugees in their millions; 4 million in
Iraq; between 600,000 to 1 million in Libya; nearly four million in
Afghanistan. Such outcomes ought to cast some doubt over the notion that
bombing can serve a humanitarian purpose, but Fox is not the man to ask such
questions.
He
would like to use British air power to fight ISIS and establish these havens,
but since ISIS doesn’t have an airforce then someone on the ground will have to
ensure such protection. Who? Well naturally it can’t be our boys, since even
Fox isn’t dumb enough to believe that British troops would be welcomed in
Syria.
Instead
he suggested that ‘Arab countries’ might do the job. That would be some of the
Gulf states which provided ISIS with its start-up funds? Perhaps some members of
the coalition who are currently doing such grand work in Yemen?
How
about Turkey, not an Arab country, but one which has nevertheless done so much
to facilitate ISIS and many of the jihadist groups fighting in Syria for
reasons that have nothing to do with protecting ‘vulnerable people.’
Maybe
the Kurds could do it, except that they aren’t strong enough, and anyway the
Western states that praised their defense of Kobane last year are now in the
throes of betraying them once again in order to keep Turkey on board the great
anti-ISIS coalition.
Still
why worry about the details? After all, we never did before. The main thing is
to bomb, because bombing is always better than doing nothing, isn’t it?
The
Sun certainly thinks so, and yesterday carried a picture of refugees arriving
in Germany with the headline ‘ Blitz ’em to hell: Our Boys await order to
destroy IS in Syria’ – a touching juxtaposition that speaks volumes about the
limits to the Murdoch press’s humanitarian blip.
The
Sun also assumes that a) bombing would protect ‘innocent civilians’ and b) that
British air power could ‘destroy’ ISIS – something that months of bombing by
the US-led coalition have failed to achieve.
Given
the record of British military adventures over the last fifteen years, the
government’s rush to bomb is alarming and almost mind-boggling for its cynicism
and simplistic belief that if you just keep bombing someone, sooner or later
it’ll all turn out right.
Osborne
insists that ‘You need a comprehensive plan for a more stable, peaceful Syria –
a huge challenge of course, but we can’t just let that crisis fester.’
As
Hugh Roberts argues in the LRB, Britain and its allies rejected the last
political opportunity – admittedly slim – that might have helped demilitarize
the Syrian conflict back in June 2012, when they scuppered Kofi Annan’s attempts
to broker a political compromise at Geneva by insisting that Assad could not be
part of it.
They
did this because they were committed to a policy of ‘regime change’ that was
driven by purely geopolitical calculations, even though it was often given a humanitarian
rationale. This policy wanted more militarization not less, regardless of its
impact on Syrian society.
Recently-published
Pentagon documents reveal that as early as August 2012, the US and its allies
foresaw the establishment of a ‘Salafist Principality’ in Syria as a strategic
instrument that they would be able to use to topple Assad.
At
a time when Western states were publicly supporting the notion of a ‘moderate
opposition’, US intelligence agencies privately recognized that the ‘major forces
driving the insurgency in Syria’ consisted of ‘the Salafist, the Muslim
Brotherhood, and AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq’ – as part of an opposition that was
supported by ‘The West, Gulf countries and Turkey.’
It
is nonsensical to imagine that these same countries can now protect civilians
or bring about a ‘stable, peaceful Syria’ by bombing the ‘Salafist
principality’ they helped create. On the contrary, such ‘havens’ will
inevitably exacerbate the fragmentation of Syria, and they will also be used as
bases to attack the regime – an option that was already being pursued in the
first year of the conflict.
To
point out this out does not mean that no one should do anything, or that
external forces can be held entirely responsible for the catastrophe that has
wrecked Syria. Assad may not have seen himself as a tyrant when he inherited
the family dynasty, but that is what he is, like all the Arab rulers who were
challenged during the ‘Arab Spring’, including those that have been trying to
overthrow him.
Syria
was a tyranny when the Syrian army colluded with Christian militias in the
Lebanese Civil War; when Hafez Assad participated in Operation Desert Storm;
when US intelligence flew terrorist suspects off to Syria to have their feet
beaten by Syrian security services.
Such
a regime has no more right to rule than any of its counterparts, and the
staggering violence that it has unleashed against its own population is
evidence of its political and moral bankruptcy.
Nevertheless,
in the short-term at least, it is difficult to see how ISIS can be defeated
without it, because Syria has become a country in which only bad choices are
available.
The
immediate priority in both Syria and Iraq must be to defeat the fascistic ISIS,
both militarily and politically, and prevent the two states from the complete
collapse that would pave the way for indefinite warlordism and jihadism. But
that ultimately, must be the task of Iraqis and Syrians themselves, and will be
dependent on a degree of political will that has so far been absent.
The
foreign states that have done so much harm in Syria ought to commit themselves
to that objective and use what powers they have to bring it about.
The
question is whether they really want to, and it may be too late to do any of
this. The wars in Syria and Iraq may have to run their course, with all the
devastation that involves, until there is very little left of either state in
their present form.
That
would be an absolute catastrophe, and it would generate a refugee crisis that
will last for decades. So we need to do anything we can to prevent it, but
let’s not allow ourselves to be manipulated by the current outpouring of public
solidarity and empathy with refugees into believing that bombing is a solution
to the horrors that are currently unfolding.
And
let’s not think that there is anything ‘humanitarian’ about rushing into a
bombing campaign to save refugees in order to stop refugees from coming to
Europe, because there really isn’t.
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