Not A Penny, Not A Drop

Leo McKinstry writes:

In their irrational enthusiasm for the hardline rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, David Cameron and the Foreign Secretary William Hague are not only dragging us into dangerous conflict that has absolutely nothing to do with our country, but, even worse, they are giving support to the ideological enemies of the West.

Less than a month ago, in an atrocity that shook our nation, a pair of Islamist fanatics hacked to death Drummer Lee Rigby in broad daylight on a London street. Yet now, with almost lunatic perversity and contempt for Lee Rigby’s memory, senior ministers are effectively backing the Islamist cause in the Syrian civil war.

Not content with providing aid to the anti-Assad insurgency, the Government is now pressing the case for the rebels to be armed. Partly due to British pressure, the European Union has lifted its embargo on the supply of weapons to Syria, while President Obama said last week that his administration will provide military hardware to the anti-Assad forces, including missile launchers, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. The next stage could be troops on the ground and the creation of a no-fly zone.

This week, in a classic example of mission creep, 350 Royal Marines will take part in multinational exercises on the Jordanian border with Syria. Far from helping to resolve the conflict, as Cameron and Hague claim, these steps can only escalate the war, which according to the United Nations is already responsible for the deaths of 93,000 civilians.

Indeed there is a real chance that our Government’s ill-conceived actions will turn the whole region into a blood soaked war zone. Already, in response to Western support for the rebels, the Russians have said they will provide President Assad with longrange S-300 anti-aircraft missiles.

In the same vein Iran, one of Syria’s closest allies, has sent 4000 Revolutionary Guards to bolster the campaign against the insurgents.

In interviews over the weekend, Cameron tried to justify his policy by arguing that the downfall of Assad would usher in “a free, democratic, pluralistic Syria.” But that is just pathetic self-delusion.

President Assad might be a cruel dictator but many of his opponents appear to be even more brutal, fuelled by their fanatical Sunni Muslim extremist dogma, the same creed that inspires Al Qaeda. Rebel soldiers have reportedly massacred civilians and even eaten the organs of dead prisoners.

In one appalling incident in the rebel-held city of Aleppo, anti-Assad militia twice shot a 14-year-old boy in the face and killed him, all for the crime of allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed.

These are not the people to establish a new era of freedom and tolerance in Syria. In fact, the rebels do not have any democratic basis whatsoever.

Even in Aleppo, supposedly one of their strongholds, 70 per cent of the population support Assad. Cameron himself admits that there are elements among the rebels “that are deeply unsavoury, that are very dangerous, very extremist.” So why on earth is he backing them? It seems that our Government has learnt absolutely nothing from the recent past.

Revelling in his self-appointed role as the world’s moral policeman, Tony Blair charged into Iraq alongside George Bush, brought down Saddam Hussein and plunged the country into state of almost permanent savage chaos. Only yesterday, another 20 Iraq civilians were killed in a wave of car bombing.

The same is true of our military interventions in Afghanistan and Libya, which, at immense cost in lives and money, failed to bring either democracy or security.

One of the terrible, counter-productive legacies of our support for the anti-Gaddafi rebellion in Libya has been the creation of a vast arms dump, bigger than the entire arsenal of the British army, which is now eagerly exploited by Al-Qaeda in its attacks on the West.

In the same way, arms supplied to Syrian rebels could eventually end up on the streets of Britain. Because there is no public support at home for intervention in Syria, Western political leaders now peddling increasingly hysterical propaganda about President Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against his people. “A line has been crossed,” says Obama solemnly.

But we heard precisely this kind of language in the run-up to the Iraq War and it all turned out to be untrue. Much of the intelligence from the secret services was a series of political-motivated fabrications.

In any case, all the concrete evidence from Syria shows that the rebels are the ones using chemical weapons. Last month on the Syrian border the Turkish authorities arrested a gang of al-Nusra Front operatives who had a cylinder filled with sarin. Predictably, Washington and London kept quiet about that incident.

We have quite enough to handle in Britain without blundering into Syria. In a time of austerity, it is a moral outrage that we should be forced to support a cause that is inimical to our country’s own interests.

Not a penny should be spent, not a drop of our heroes’ blood should be shed just to feed the self-importance of our politicians.