Before Donald Trump got elected to be American president last week and caused generation snowflake to go apoplectic I started to pen a letter to Theresa May on Syria. Well what a surprise but Mr Trump seems to have the same views as me on this subject. Perhaps he should elect me as his advisor!
Looking at the headlines in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph we see that Mr Trump is taking the line that we should be more alongside Russia in their Syria policy rather than helping the Syrian ‘opposition.’ I would have advised the British government to take Trump’s line ages ago, even before this present conflict started. We might have saved ourselves an awful lot of trouble, notably perhaps some of the massive migrant flows into Europe which are now destabilising the continent.
Under Assad Syria was a reasonably stable entity up to the recent conflict. Indeed it was perhaps a bit of a beacon for the Middle East where Christians and Yazidis were free to practice their faith and basically protected by Assad. How many Middle Eastern states can you say that of? Admittedly Syria was no western liberal democracy but is was not a bad imitation of being the least worst option in terms of decent government in that part of the world. Again Assad might not be your favourite uncle who you’d look forward to having a pint with down at the ‘Dog and Duck,’ but he understood a little better the threat that Islamic extremists posed to his country and would have a little more clue than the west about how to deal with them. I daresay his opponents have one language for Europe and another for the Middle East, it was ever so.
So what I am saying is perhaps let’s help Assad deal with these opponents of his rather than doing everything possible to oust him from power, because I venture to suggest that what we will get in his place will be far, far worse. Shades of the Shah of Iran anyone? Thank God David Cameron lost his vote in the Commons in August 2013 to take military action against Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, fuelled I seem to remember by his wife’s Syrian experiences. I think a few angels hanging around in the chamber that day may have whispered in some MPs ears which way to vote. The least worst option in the Middle East is often to help some of these regimes stay in power for a modicum of stability, cue Egypt, Libya and so on, rather than indulge in regime change. Bit of discernment needed here of course as you can’t make it a rule for every situation, but I think we should be very slow to get involved in the Middle East unless it directly affects our interests and there is overwhelming clamour for these countries for our help. We would get more support from the Middle East if countries there knew that their people had begged us to help them dealing with intractable situations.
So I am somewhat aghast at the latest rumblings from the government that Mr Trump should be persuaded not to get too close to Russia on this issue. To think that the whole government machine, the Cabinet, the Foreign Office and all those advisory civil servants will be busy trying to persuade Mr Trump not to support Mr Assad, that’s our taxpayers money folks. It won’t be the best start to a new relationship with our strongest ally.
I can’t help thinking that most of Mr Assad’s opponents in Aleppo and elsewhere are of the ‘bearded extremist’ type who will behead you or worse if you can’t quote a couple of ready verses from the Koran in case they query your Moslem credentials, and are busy constructing the worldwide caliphate beloved of militant Islam. Why we should be supporting such people I have no idea. We should be doing everything we can to wipe them from the face of the earth if it comes to military conflict. There is huge concern about how people are suffering because of the Russian/Assad bombardment of Aleppo, but this is where the US and UK could perhaps bring a little more finesse to the campaign with more precision targeting of the real enemy.
If Mrs Clinton had got in we would be cosying up to her as she pulled full steam ahead with her Syrian policy, perhaps arming the opposition more? No fly zones? A bit of sabre rattling in Putin’s direction? It would only need one or two near misses between Russian Migs and American F35s or Her Majesty’s Tornados in a no fly zone and we could see the start of World War 3, not something the liberal west wants to wake up to as it munches its raisin flavoured porridge in the morning.
Sure, Putin is no angel and may be a leader geared for war, but it sure is wiser to accommodate the Bear rather than poke it with a great big massive stick, especially in the cauldron of the Middle East. This is why I think we have a little less clue than Trump’s pending administration, so I bow to my American cousins on this issue. I by no means condone Putin’s authoritarianism and some of the ruthless actions of the Russian state machine, but in Syria it might be a case of holding your nose to help the Russians destroy ISIS. After all, in the Second World War the Soviet Union and US were fighting on the same side. Perhaps the Brits can join them to help out.
Meanwhile I must finish my letter to Theresa May. But what do I know compared with those armies of civil servants in Whitehall?