Our gun is primed, loaded and ready for yet another cock-up.
Syria is very much in the news and momentum is gathering behind the battle cry WE MUST DO SOMETHING! No one is quite sure exactly what, when and especially what for. Uncertainty reigns.
So much more grateful we must be to Tony ‘Yo’ Blair who took time from his busy tour of Mediterranean yachts to teach us morality in international relations.
Now when the likes of Tony begin to pontificate on this subject, we know we’re in trouble. And when he laces his moral cocktail with strategic insights, it’s time to run for the hills.
Tony, you remember, was the only Western leader prepared to play poodle to George W. Bush in the calamitous invasion of Iraq. A few billion pounds and, more important, a few hundred wasted British lives later, the whole region has been turned into a bloodbath.
What does Tony, able abetted by ‘heir to Blair’ Dave, want to do now? Having dug us into a hole he wants to go on digging. Let’s now attack Syria, he screams in his Times article. For openers.
His reading of the situation can’t be faulted: “Syria [is] mired in carnage between the brutality of Assad and various affiliates of al-Qaeda.”
Correct. So where does this leave us? Logically, we have two options: a) let them sort it out between themselves and b) support one of the sides.
Since doing nothing goes against Tony’s impetuous nature, option b) is the only one on the table. So which side should we support?
Tony is clear on this: “…the side of the people who want what we want; who see our societies for all their faults as something to admire; who know that they should not be faced with a choice between tyranny and theocracy.”
Right. Assad represents tyranny, his al-Qaeda opponents stand for theocracy, and we should waste more British money and lives to support the latter because they admire our societies. Makes sense. Let’s win one for al-Qaeda.
So what’s Tony’s problem with Iran then, which also troubles him? “Iran still — despite its new president — a theocratic dictatorship, with a nuclear bomb.”
No doubt Tony has his own intelligence data on the second part – the rest of us don’t realise that Iran already has a nuclear bomb. But he’s right on the first part: Iran is a theocracy, just like the regime with which al-Qaeda rebels wish to replace Assad’s tyranny.
Does this mean we should support Iran “despite its new president” who, as a Muslim cleric, isn’t according to Tony a theocrat? Don’t know about you, but I’m confused.
Let me get this straight. We must go to war in Syria on the side of al-Qaeda to uphold Tony’s morality offended by Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons, which was a terrible thing to do.
However, numerically it’s less terrible than many other instances of states murdering their own citizens. Russia, for example, is now being run by an organisation (and led by its veteran) that murdered 60 million people. The ruling communist party of China ran up a similar score.
Yet the West happily buys Russian gas and Chinese undergarments – how does Tony reconcile his flaming conscience with that?
He answered this query while still prime minister: “They ask why we don’t get rid of Mugabe, why not the Burmese lot. Yes, let’s get rid of them all. I don’t because I can’t, but when you can, you should.”
So Tony wants to hit Syria for the same reason a dog does something one can’t mention: because he can. Should it stop there? Not as far as Tony is concerned:
“From the threat of the Iranian regime to the pulverising of Syria to the pains of the Egyptian revolution, from Libya to Tunisia, in Africa, Central Asia and the Far East, wherever this extremism is destroying the lives of innocent people, we should be at their side and on it.”
We’ve just left the area of self-vindicating idiocy and entered one of lunacy. Our dwindling army must, according to Tony, engage every unsavoury regime on earth to comply with his moral tenets. Methinks our 80,000 men (the size of our army in a year’s time) may be stretched a bit thin.
Compare this rant with the words of a politician from the time when the West was run by statesmen, not spivs. Speaking of America, John Quincy Adams (d. 1848) said, “She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”
That’s how statesmen think. They know that nations go to war to uphold their interests, not their debatable take on morality.
But sorry, according to Dave ‘heir to Blair’ Cameron, the projected bombing raids on Syria don’t constitute an act of war: “Let me stress to people this is not about getting involved in a Middle Eastern war or changing our stance in Syria or going further into that conflict.”
Yes of course, Dave, bombing a sovereign nation doesn’t mean getting involved in a war, we all know that.
A reality check is in order. Britain has nothing to gain from being instrumental in radicalising and Islamising Syria – which, as the experience of Iran, Iraq, Tunisia, Egypt etc shows, will be the only possible result of Western meddling.
In some instances, Tony and Dave, nothing is the best thing to do. God spare us from spivs drunk on their own power and with activism coursing through their veins.
Will no one rid us of this troublesome lot?