Tag Archives: syria

Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Syrian Butterfly

By Tom Arms | Sat 14th December 2024 - 8:30 am
The Syrian butterfly has flapped its wings and created a political storm throughout the region and well beyond.
Russia has lost a Middle East foothold and global credibility but gained troops for its war in Ukraine. Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” has been reduced to dust. Hezollah has been cut off from its supplier.
All the Arab states will be pleased that the Persians have been humbled but will be worried that they have been backed into the nuclear corner.
China may be casting a covetous eye over the the vacuum left by a weakened Russia in Central Asia, Middle East and the  south Caucasuses. Joe Biden sees an “historic opportunity.” Donald Trump sees an exit.
Israel sees an opportunity to expand its territory and influence, and a chance to remove both Iran and Syria as major foes.
Western intelligence chiefs have expressed concerns about an upsurge of Islamic violence in the West. Those fleeing Hayat Tahrir al- Sham (HTS) may increase the number of refugees heading West. But then the millions in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Europe may more than balance the books by starting a Great Return.
Turkey is  chuffed that the organisation which they sheltered, HTS, in northwest Syria may now rule the rest of the country. This could increase their foothold in 100 square kilometres of Syrian territory and their suppression of Kurdish rebels. The Kurds are worried about the Turks, as are their Israeli and American backers.
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Paul Reynolds

Understanding the Syria conflicts 2

By Paul Reynolds | Fri 13th December 2024 - 1:07 pm

Although they cannot be condoned, public executions of former Syrian secret police in Damascus, Latakia and elsewhere in Syria, following the new HTS-led government, are not exactly unexpected.

When Hafez Assad came to power with the support of the Soviet Union in the 1960s, Moscow helped the new regime set up the brutal, hated Mukhabarat secret police. The Mukhabarat , led mostly by Alawites, were known not only for mass torture and ‘disappearances’ to keep Hafez Assad in power, they also had their tentacles all over the Syrian military and economy, deploying widespread ‘confiscations’. His son Bashar Assad, reportedly considered reigning in the Mukhabarat for economic reasons, but had little chance to succeed. He became dependent on the Mukhabarat to stay in power, who increased their murderous, torturing spree under his rule, and further alienated the population.

Saddam’s equally murderous and hated Mukhabarat in Iraq was also developed with Soviet assistance, as were the internal terror institutions of Algeria, set up under Chairman Boumédiène.

I am intimately acquainted with these three Soviet-initiated security institutions myself, having been arrested and imprisoned pending execution in the Algerian garrison town of Blida at the age of 19, having been dragged from my car and cuffed by the Syrian Mukhabarat on the Jordanian border for no apparent reason in the 1990s, and having shockingly located the hidden Iraqi Mukhabarat torture HQ in Basra, after giving chase with my Close Protection Team, in 2003.

Hatred of the Mukhabarat helped fuel the genuine ‘Arab Spring’ Syrian uprising from 2011, but as with the Tahir Square uprising in Egypt, and revolts in Tunisia and Libya, the young, sometimes EU-facing pro-democracy ‘moderns’ were soon swept away by the more grounded Islamists. In Egypt the Brotherhood were appreciated amongst the poor for their social support.

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Paul Reynolds

Understanding the Syria conflicts

By Paul Reynolds | Wed 11th December 2024 - 9:50 am

As in many parts of the world, history is very much a political weapon in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is difficult to assess conflicts in Syria (and the British/Western interest) for this reason, especially for politicians unversed in the labyrinthine machinations of post-Sykes-Picot Syria and the Levant. Every phrase uttered is ‘controversial’.

There is much to be understood about the ancient past of the area, especially in relation to territorial claims and counter-claims made by different ethnic and religious factions today (..of widely-varying historical or archaeological solidity). These claims fog up the search for ‘academic’ historical understanding. The Eastern Med is identity politics on steroids.

However, relevant modern Syrian history begins not so much with the much-touted 1916 Sykes Picot agreement per se,  but with a series of related international agreements established between 1915 and 1923, initiated primarily after the start of WW1 due to the anticipated fall of the Ottoman Empire. These involved the UK, France, Russia, Turkiye, Armenia … and Arab & Kurdish groups who had opposed the ruling Ottoman Empire.

Syria’s borders today do reflect these international negotiations. Local ethnically Arab, Kurd and other populations had limited influence. There was a reluctance in the major-power negotiations to establish  countries or administrative regions based on ethnicity or religion, and a key result of that was the absence of a ‘Kurdish’ state, and the consolidation of several Arab states of mixed ethnic make up, and of varying denominations of the mostly Abrahamic religions.

These divisions were utilised after WW2 by the Soviets, with their anti-colonial narratives in the Cold War period. Recognising the history, they sought a ‘strong leader’ (in the colonial tradition) to hold all the Syrian groups together, by force or otherwise, who was not a member of one of the major dominant groups. In the early 1960s they cultivated a notable Alawite family, conveniently based in a Northern coastal area. By 1963 the brutal Ba’athist Hafez al-Assad, the future president, was already the primary power behind the scenes. He had received pilot training in the Soviet Union in the 1950s.

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Mo Waqas

Shadows over Damascus: The unravelling of a regime

By Mo Waqas | Tue 10th December 2024 - 1:26 pm

Bashar al-Assad has fled, and HTS fighters, backed by Turkey, have taken control of Damascus. It immediately brought to mind the fall of Kabul to the Taliban only a few years ago—how quickly power shifted with little resistance. Afghanistan fell to the Taliban then, and now it seems Damascus may fall to HTS. Yet, this isn’t just a repeat of history; it’s a far more complex situation.

Let me be clear: Bashar al-Assad was no saint. He was a dreadful leader, willing to commit unspeakable atrocities to cling to power. Yet, I genuinely expected him to fight harder to retain his grip. It’s worth noting that Assad wasn’t originally meant to rule; that role was intended for his brother, who tragically died in a car crash. Bashar was thrust into power by circumstance, and his leadership style has always reflected that—a man eager to please but lacking the foresight for the long game.

The timing of this shift couldn’t be worse for Assad’s allies. Iran, preoccupied with Israel and Lebanon, and Russia, entrenched in Ukraine, are in no position to prop him up. In this vacuum, Turkey has made a bold move. I see this as Erdoğan’s masterstroke—a calculated “Ottoman slap,” so to speak. Make no mistake, this wasn’t an HTS-led victory in isolation. This was orchestrated in Ankara, backed by Istanbul, and serves as a clear message to the Middle East: there’s a new sheriff in town.

However, the fall of Assad comes with significant risks. History shows us what happens when iron-fisted regimes collapse without a clear successor. Iraq post-Saddam and Libya after Gaddafi offer grim lessons. Power vacuums invite chaos, and Syria could easily become a breeding ground for ISIS-like groups to reemerge. HTS doesn’t have the monopoly on violence needed to stabilize the region, leaving Syria vulnerable to prolonged instability. I wouldn’t be surprised if Turkey takes further action, possibly carving out a buffer zone to guard against Kurdish aspirations for autonomy.

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Mark Valladares

8 December 2024 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Sun 8th December 2024 - 9:30 pm
  • Ambulance delays crisis: Streeting must make a statement to Parliament
  • Syria: Assad must now face justice for his crimes

Ambulance delays crisis: Streeting must make a statement to Parliament

Responding to reports that heart attack patients are being advised to make their own way to hospital while six of England’s ten ambulance trusts are at risk of service failure, Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson Helen Morgan said:

The shocking reports on the state of ambulance services are extremely concerning, and show the dire situation in which the Conservative government has left so many of our vital NHS services.

Lack of services and wait

…

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Jonathan Brown

Syrians are free at last

By Jonathan Brown | Sun 8th December 2024 - 12:15 pm

Syria is free. Despite the odds, despite the indifference, despite the efforts of the ‘Global community’ to ‘freeze the conflict’ and bring ‘stability’ to a problem they wished would go away… Syrians have freed themselves. The Assad regime, rotten to the core, competent solely at oppressing Syrians, is finished. 

Across the country, Syrians from all religions, sects and ethnicities have been pulling down statues of their oppressor, but the images that probably matter most are those of people walking or being carried free from the regime’s prison network. Families being reunited with relatives they’d been told had died in captivity years ago. Children born to mothers in prison. An air force pilot imprisoned for refusing to carry out the order to bomb civilians in Hama – in 1982. Prisoners so abused that they cannot remember their own names.

Syrians are already beginning to return to their homes. From refugee camps within Syria and from surrounding countries. This is a time for optimism.

The revolution in Syria – and we can unambiguously call it that now, rather than a ‘conflict’ – has been poorly covered in the international media, with some honourable exceptions. In part I think this is down to how complex Syrian society is, in part due to how quickly and how often things changed in the country and in part because many in the media and politics fell (or worse, jumped knowingly) into the trap of seeing events in Syria as part of a ‘great game’, rather than seeing Syrians as a people with their own agency.

Over the years I’ve written a number of articles for Lib Dem Voice on Syria, in which I tried to do my part, to explain to party members what was happening, what our choices were as a country as to how we should respond. The Lib Dems for Free Syria organised briefings for parliamentarians and tried to feed into our party’s policy-making process. The most important thing we tried to do was to platform Syrians.

It’s with that in mind that I’m writing this today. Firstly, infinite congratulations to Syrians for overthrowing one of the worst monsters the world has seen. Secondly, to ask Liberal Democrats, whatever their concerns about what might come next for Syria, to please use this time to be happy for Syrians. The future is uncertain, but it is now for Syrians to determine.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Middle East Whack-a-Mole

By Tom Arms | Sat 7th December 2024 - 9:35 am

The Middle East is very much like the fairground game whack-a-mole. You think you have solved your problems by knocking a mole on the head and another one of the pesky beasts pops up on the other side of the board.

Just as Israel and Washington thought they had Hezbollah and Iran on the back foot, an Islamic fundamentalist group has popped up to threaten Syria’s Assad regime.  And, of course, the Gazan mole still has its head above the parapets – just.

The temptation is to raise a cheer for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its leader Abu Muhammad Al-Jolani. They are, after all, now the main threat to the regime of Basahar-al Assad, one of the regime’s most brutal anti-Western dictators. They also pose the biggest danger to Russian and Iranian influence in the region.

But HTS are an internationally proscribed terrorist organisation with a reputation for brutal repression. They also want to create an Islamic state within Syria. The last thing the Middle East needs is another religiously-based government which derives its legitimacy from its relationship with an infallible Higher Being.

So, who is HTS and its leader? Why have they suddenly leapt into the world’s headlines? And, finally, what are their chances of toppling the Assad regime?

Al-Jolani himself is a shadowy figure. Even his birth date is unknown, although he is believed to be in his mid-forties and hails from Damascus where his parents still live. When the Syrian Civil War started with the 2011 Arab Spring, Al Jolani was associated with the Jihadist group Al Nusra which was the main Islamic opposition group opposing Assad in Aleppo and Syria’s northern Idlib region.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review – 21 May 2023

By Tom Arms | Sun 21st May 2023 - 11:30 am

Diamonds are sexy.

That is why they are at the top of the new list of sanctions against Russia. They also represent only $4 billion of Russia’s exports. This is a fraction of what Russia is earning in sales of oil, gas and weapons to countries thumbing their noses at Western sanctions.

That is why Japanese Premier Fumio Kishida has invited eight additional world leaders to the G7 Summit in Hiroshima this weekend. Gone are the days when the top seven industrialised countries could dictate terms to the rest of the world. If sanctions against Russia are going to work they have to be world sanctions, not just western sanctions.

The additional countries at the table this weekend are India, Brazil, Australia, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Comoros and Cook Islands. They have been invited either because they are major economies and political powers in their own right or represent a region of the world.

Most of them are sceptical about Western sanctions and some of them—such as India—are flagrantly flouting them and helping to fund the Russian war machine. India has also refused to condemn Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Vietnam has a long history of close relations with Moscow that go back to the French colonial wars and the Vietnam War. It still buys 60 percent of its weaponry from Russia. Indonesia is also a big buyer of Russian weaponry.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (aka Lula) projects himself as a friend to everyone. He has met with American, Russian and Chinese leaders; and wants to set up a “peace club” to resolve the Ukraine War.

China is also high on the G7 agenda, especially as regards the sabre rattling around Taiwan. Prime Minister Kishida wants the expanded G7 to make a clear statement in favour of Taiwan. This will be difficult given that almost all of the countries represented are heavily invested in the Chinese economy.

The world is so much more complicated than in 1975 when Giscard d’Estaing hosted the inaugural G7 summit at Rambouillet.

Syria has become a Narco state

And its new found position in the world is one of the reasons that President Bashar al-Assad is hugging Middle East leaders at the Arab League summit in Jeddah this weekend.

Syria and its leader were effectively expelled from the Arab League 12 years ago when Assad responded to the Arab Spring with bullets and chemical weapons. Since then 500,000 Syrians have died and 6 million have been displaced. Assad has managed to cling to power with the help of Iran and Russia.

But Assad needed money to pay for the weapons needed to fight his civil war. The factories and markets had been largely reduced to rubble. The farmers have fled their fields for refugee camps. So Assad turned to the manufacture of drugs.

More specifically, a synthetic amphetamine called captagon which is also known as fenethylline. The drug was first developed in the US in 1961 and given to soldiers in Vietnam to help their combat performance. But by the 1980s the dangerous side effects had become known and the amphetamine was banned.

The Syrian captagon is a super-charged version of the 1960s amphetamine. It is highly addictive and causes irreversible damage to the brain’s circuits that govern impulse control and judgement. It basically takes away the ability to reason or think rationally.

This was the perfect drug for ISIS who have bought in large quantities from Syrian dealers in order to turn their fighters into a cross between screaming banshees and mindless zombies.

In recent years the market in the drug has expanded from ISIS fighters to include upper the young social elite in Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Recently a cache of 157 million tablets was found in shipment of flour bound for Saudi Arabia.

The Gulf States have been unable to stop their young people popping the Syrian-produced pills. So, they swallowed their pride and re-admitted Assad to the Arab fold in the hope that they can persuade him to shut down to the captagon labs.

Turkish elections

It looks bad for Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the second round of the Turkish elections on 28 May. Opinion polls predicted that he would top the three-man race last Sunday and possibly even win the 50 percent plus one vote needed to topple 20-year incumbent Tayyip Recep Erdogan in the first round.

The opinion polls were wrong. It was Erdogan who came out on top with 49.4 percent of the vote. Kilicdaroglu won 44.9 percent. Ultra nationalist Sinan Ogan secured five percent and his voters are more likely to back Erdogan than Kilicdaroglu in the second round.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat – Quake Problems

By Tom Arms | Sun 12th February 2023 - 10:05 am

The death toll of Turkey’s earthquake has passed the 20,000 mark. It will soar further as freezing weather and disease sweep through the refugee camps and devastated towns and villages to replace falling rubble as the primary cause of death.

But the earthquake has also created and exacerbated political problems and opportunities whose rippling aftershocks have the potential effect of toppling political as well as physical structures.

The first possible victim is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who is coming under attack for his failure to build sounder structures in the middle of the one of the world’s most dangerous earthquake zones. It should be noted that Erdogan rose to power on the back of Bulent Ecevit’s failures after a 1999 earthquake.

The destruction in southern Turkey came at both the best and worst of times for President Erdogan. His popularity is plummeting amidst economic problems and increasing dissatisfaction with his autocratic rule. There is a real possibility that he could lose the parliamentary and presidential ballot set for 14 May.

But at the same time, the natural disaster has created opportunities for Erdogan. He has declared a three-month state of emergency which will take him right up to Election Day. This will enable him to deploy troops and tighten his stranglehold on the media. Already social media users have been arrested for criticising the government’s earthquake policies.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sat 19th March 2022 - 2:25 pm

The world’s television cameras have shifted to the tragedy of Ukraine. But that does not mean that the problems elsewhere have disappeared. If anything they have worsened as the money and attention has shifted to the danger of a European, East-West war. There are now 89 million displaced people in the world. The greatest number ever in history. Here’s a very brief summary of some of the worst:

Syria celebrated (if that is the correct word) the 11th anniversary of the start of its civil war this week (15 March). It has, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the dubious distinction of being the centre of the world’s largest displacement of people. The death toll is estimated at 500,000. Six million are internally displaced and five million have fled the country. The biggest number of refugees are in Turkey – 3.7 million. The UNHCR reports that it has only received seven percent of the $465 million it needs for 2022 to provide basic food and shelter. One of the hardest hit areas is Northern Syria where 1.5 million people are living in snow-covered tents spread over 1,489 separate camps. The problems are not confined to the areas where refugees have fled. In about 100 villages in the government-controlled Aleppo region the people are suffering from the absence of drinking water. Possibly the only good news in Syria is that some of Assad’s soldiers are being diverted to Ukraine to help the Russians and the Russians may be unable to provide the assistance to Assad that they have contributed to date.

The Ethiopian war between the government of Abiy Ahmed and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front continues to rage out of the spotlight. So far it is estimated that there are 1.7 million internally displaced people and 500,000 in refugee camps in Sudan. The war has also spread to the Amhar region as the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front attempted to march through that territory to attack Addis Ababa.  Because of a blockade by federal forces no food or medical aid has been delivered to Tigray Province since mid-December. Three-quarters of Tigray’s health facilities have been destroyed. Forget about covid jabs. Both sides are reported to be guilty of rape and murder and have been burning crops, slaughtering livestock and destroying grain stocks. The result is famine. The director-general of the World Health Organisation Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (himself an Ethiopian) has described the situation as “catastrophic.”

The BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson has described the aftermath of the war in Afghanistan as the “destruction of a nation.” Before the Taliban victory 80 percent of the Afghanistan’s budget was derived from foreign aid – mainly from the US. But a humiliated and angry Washington has frozen $10 billion of Afghanistan’s foreign reserves, $7 billion of which is directly held in the Federal Reserve Bank. There is talk of half of it being released for humanitarian relief with the rest going to the victims of the 9/11 attack. The Afghan people certainly need the relief. Roughly 85 percent of a population of 38.4 million are facing starvation. Unemployment is up. Food Prices are up. The Afghan currency is plummeting. Because they are malnourished, there is a measles epidemic among the children. Covid is rampant. The UN has asked for $4.4 billion for basic foodstuffs. By the beginning of March $1.4 billion has been raised.

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John McHugo

Idlib – time for some Liberal guilt

By John McHugo | Sat 29th February 2020 - 3:58 pm

Embed from Getty Images

Why do we forget about Syria so easily? The answer is probably that, most of the time, it does not matter to us. After all, Lloyd-George (a Liberal prime minister) shamefully agreed to the Anglo-French partition of the former Ottoman provinces into mandates in April 1920 and handed Syria over to France – even though this was not what most Syrians wanted.  Since then, it hasn’t been our problem, has it?

After the Arab Spring reached Damascus in March 2011, the West assumed Bashar al Assad would soon be gone, and let Syrians think we would support them if they managed to throw him out. No formal promises were made – just hints – but Syrians looked to the West and some may have been encouraged to join those rising in rebellion as a result.

I remember how our party conference voted against military intervention after the chemicals weapon attack in August 2013. From talking to people who voted down the motion, “we’ll only risk making things worse” seemed to be the general view, despite the passionate urgings of our leadership. As someone who loves Syria and has some knowledge of the country, I wondered why we were worried about a few hundred deaths from chemicals. Well over a hundred thousand had already been slaughtered by the country’s army. The answer, of course, was that chemical weapons might one day be used against us – so we didn’t want Bashar al Assad to have them. But it was relatively OK for him to bomb his own people.

Then, of course, came the flow of refugees to Europe. Germany provided moral leadership, but would the UK and most of the rest of Europe step up? Not on your Nelly!

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Mark Valladares

15 January 2020 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 15th January 2020 - 11:45 pm
  • Lib Dems question FlyBe bailout
  • Tory minister wrong to promote flying in the face of climate emergency
  • Ed Davey calls for better support for bereaved families at PMQs
  • Government must repeal unlawful Snoopers’ Charter
  • Lib Dems: Prime Minister must now keep his promise to protect Erasmus
  • Lib Dems: PM agrees to work with Lib Dems on human rights abuses in Syria

Lib Dems question FlyBe bailout

Responding to news that the Government intends to bail out Flybe, Liberal Democrat Transport spokesperson, Munira Wilson MP, said:

Flybe provides a vital service in connecting many regions of the UK which are otherwise hard to travel between, not least

…

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John McHugo

Kurds, Turks, Syria and hypocrisy

By John McHugo | Mon 14th October 2019 - 3:00 pm

I’ll begin by making two things clear. The first is that Trump’s sudden decision to pull US troops out of eastern Syria is self-evidently irresponsible and very foolish. The other is that Turkey’s invasion will cause yet further civilian suffering and I suspect it will ultimately solve nothing. But now I’ve made these two admissions, I want to share some uncomfortable thoughts about the way this new conflict taking place within the borders of Syria is being perceived.

While Turkey’s invasion has hit the headlines, the regime bombing of Idlib and attacks on the ground receive almost no attention by comparison, …

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Jonathan Brown

Freedom Across Borders

By Jonathan Brown | Tue 2nd July 2019 - 8:12 am

Since April this year, Russian and Syrian aircraft have bombed over twenty-five hospitals inside the Idlib ‘Deconfliction’ Zone in northwest Syria, prompting hundreds of thousands of Syrians, many of whom have already been internally displaced, to flee once again. The UN watches helplessly as most of the rest of the world turns its back on the country, uncomfortably grateful that this ongoing horror story rarely makes headlines any more.

Even now, Syrian civil society activists struggle on, attempting to provide basic health and rescue services and to resist the brutality of both the regime and its allies and the …

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Caron Lindsay

Shamima Begum: The approval of the right wing press should not be part of what happens next

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 14th February 2019 - 7:35 pm

I read the interview with Shamima Begum in today’s Times (£) with mixed emotions. I have There is no doubt that she has made some utterly horrendous decisions in her young life which will take a lot to unravel. My instinctive reaction, though, is that rehabilitation must be at the heart of what happens next.

She is a British citizen. So is her soon-to-be-born baby. She cannot be denied access to this country. If she does make it back here, there will have to specialist intervention and risk assessment but the overarching aim should be to get her to a place where she can be re-integrated into society. That is not going to be easy for her, but nor should it be excessively punitive either.

She says some things in her interview that are undeniably hard to read. And even worse to listen to. But I guess you have to remember that in the last 3 months, she has lost two young children for want of decent health care. It’s early stages in the grieving process. You can maybe see where the denial and defiance comes from. We can only imagine the pain that lies beneath it.

As I write, her family’s lawyer is making the point on Channel 4 News that she is in a camp with 36000 others, some of whom remain ISIS supporters. If she were to speak out against ISIS to the press, she could find herself in even more danger.

We also have to remember that her own mother died a year before she left this country. How might that loss have rendered her more susceptible to targeted radicalisation? A huge amount of work needs to be done by her and others to combat the effects of that, but we should give her access to the programs can achieve that.

One thing that we shouldn’t do, though, is allow the approval of the right wing press to have any part in this. We should do what is right in terms of the law, human rights and due process. We have to take into account her age and vulnerability and circumstances at the time she made the extremely poor decision to travel to Syria.

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Ryan Priest

Airstrikes Alone Will Not Solve the Syrian Crisis

By Ryan Priest | Thu 19th April 2018 - 1:06 pm

Given the last two decades of failed interventions it is easy to understand why the majority of Britain is opposed to the recent intervention in Syria.

As liberals we must do all we can, as internationalists, to maintain peace around the globe. But also as liberals we cannot allow such abhorrent crimes to continue to be committed by the Assad regime. The silence of our inaction would have been deafening; five years of ignoring the conflict has led us to where we are today.

The scars of the Libyan intervention are still in the recent memories of the West, and conflict still plagues the nation, but our failures there cannot deter us from upholding our moral commitment to prevent war crimes and holding those who commit them to account. The Pro-Assad propaganda, backed by Russia and elements of the Labour party, are toxic: they stand in the way of any meaningful resolution in Syria, and more civilians will die if their interpretation of the war enters the mainstream of political thought.

We must look to our past if we are to make sure that we leave Syria a better place than it is now. The airstrikes are a short term solution, but they are only limiting Assad’s ability to launch another chemical attack, a noble cause but not a path to peace.

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Caron Lindsay

Why is a parliamentary vote on military action necessary?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 14th April 2018 - 6:41 pm

I have just come back from a wonderful week in the Highlands with only intermittent connection to the internet. The apologetic note from the housekeeper of our rented holiday cottage saying that the wifi was out of action was unexpected but very welcome. It was incredibly restorative to have a few days when the only thing I had to worry about (and this is not insignificant, I have to say) was the incredibly dim pheasants with no instinct of self preservation whatsoever that would blithely wander into the path of the car on the single track road to the cottage. Seriously, one of the little beasts held me up for three full minutes last night as my dinner was getting cold. Oh, and there was the irony of finding that Scottish Water, who have been delaying my commute with their roadworks in Edinburgh for nigh on half a year were also digging up the village on my twice daily route to the beach. The delays were substantially less, though.

My very grateful thanks and promises of beer and wine at a later date are due to Paul and Mary who kept the site going through mine and Kirsten’s absence this week.

Since we’ve been away, the horrific chemical attack in Syria has shocked, if not surprised, the world. When something like that happens, it’s so important to respond in a careful and considered way, with a proper plan that has the support of key international allies and, in our case, parliamentary approval. I know that we technically don’t have to have a parliamentary vote, but it sends a much stronger message if action is taken with the consent of a majority of members of Parliament. It lends a legitimacy to the proceedings.

Any Government sending our people into active service should have the democratic scrutiny of Parliament behind it. We live in a parliamentary democracy and the government shouldn’t avoid its responsibilities in that regard.

I am still not entirely sure whether I support the attack in principle. Of course anyone who gases their own people needs to be stopped and, frankly, sitting round a table and asking Assad nicely not to do it probably isn’t going to cut it. I think there is an argument for taking out the capability to produce and use these awful weapons. However, you have to be very sure that you aren’t going to make the situation worse for the people who live there.

Vince Cable’s statesmanlike approach to these issues has made me wish he were making the decisions rather than May and certainly the ever volatile Donald Trump. He has been reasonable, asking for evidence, a plan and a parliamentary vote and he’s been explaining today why he thinks that is so important:

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Peter Wrigley

Letter to Vince Cable – UK military action in Syria is not justified

By Peter Wrigley | Fri 13th April 2018 - 1:10 pm

Embed from Getty Images
This letter is in response to Vince’s request for feedback on the Syrian question

Dear Vince Cable,

Thank you for giving we members an opportunity to forward our views to you on the possible military intervention by the UK in Syria.

This is an extremely difficult problem which seems to place us in a lose-lose situation. If we do not intervene we appear to stand by impotently whilst terrible wickedness takes place, including the internationally illegal use of chemical weapons. If we do intervene there is a strong possibility of making a bad situation worse, as has already happened in similar circumstances in Iraq and Libya.

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Steve Trevethan

Wars are rackets – some more than others?

By Steve Trevethan | Fri 13th April 2018 - 11:00 am

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. – – – It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

Smedley D. Butler

Major General Smedley knew what he was talking about. He achieved the highest rank possible in the US Marines and was the most decorated marine.
He said the only two reasons for armed conflict were the defence of our homes and of basic laws and rights. One is an external threat and the other is an internal threat. Currently we face the second.

The defence of one’s homes comes as a result of existential conflict. All other wars are optional.

Perhaps, there is more than one type of optional war.

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David Thorpe

Taking action against Syria is not liberal interventionism

By David Thorpe | Thu 12th April 2018 - 12:13 pm

Embed from Getty Images

Watching the scenes of devastation and anarchy beamed at us nightly from Syria, the instant, understandable reaction is to demand that something must be done, and support UK military intervention in the country.

There is a debate for another time and another place about whether liberal interventionism is ever effective, even as it is often right.

The problem is taking action against Syria at this stage does not even qualify as liberal interventionism, for even if a coalition of the UK, France and the US were somehow, and against the odds, able to achieve through their military action a change in the direction in the present war in Syria, the outcome would not be liberal.

This is because if Assad falls, what will rise is either a fury of rival militia groups motivated by revenge and fuelled by the extremes of sectarianism, from such Hobbesian wars liberalism tends not to flourish.

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Posted in Op-eds | 27 Comments
The Voice

Vince Cable on Syria

By The Voice | Thu 12th April 2018 - 9:09 am

In an email to members Vince Cable writes:

I am certain that you are as appalled as I am about the horrific scenes coming out of Syria.

The use of chemical weapons is barbaric. It is a crime against humanity and it is a clear violation of international law.

The Liberal Democrats are an internationalist, outward-looking party – and part of that is being willing to play our part in upholding international law.

In the next few days, it is possible the Government will ask MPs to decide on potential military action in Syria. This is not a decision we will ever make lightly.

As Leader, I want to be clear with you how I and our group in Parliament will make such a decision.

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Caron Lindsay

Tim’s best bits #2: That Syria vote

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 18th July 2017 - 9:15 pm

In December 2015, the House of Commons voted on whether to carry out airstrikes in Syria. Had I been a Liberal Democrat MP, I’d have voted against. However, Tim led 75% of ours through the voting lobbies in support of the Government’s plans.

I wrote about my mixed feelings at the time:

Yesterday, though, I could totally understand and empathise with our leader’s stance, driven as it was by the best of liberal, humanitarian and internationalist motivations. He made an absolute cracker of a speech, delivered with passion and confidence

I was glad, however, that my views were represented in the division lobbies by two of our MPs, Norman Lamb and Mark Williams. It’s a great credit to our party that we were able to debate this in a very serious manner and without rancour or recrimination.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: The fight for the spoils

By Tom Arms | Sat 24th June 2017 - 10:55 am

Politics hates a vacuum. It especially hates a vacuum in the tinderbox cockpit of the Middle East where the conflicting issues of money, vital resources, religious extremism , religious conflicts, historic rivalries and the geopolitical link between East and West dangerously clash.

The virtual collapse in 2011-2012 of Bashar Al-Assad’s despotic regime in Syria created such a vacuum. It was filled by the even more despotic Islamic State Caliphate.

Now the Caliphate is on its knees.  The Western half of Mosul is recaptured.  Only a handful of IS fighters remain in the dangerously narrow winding streets of the Eastern half.

The fundamentalists once boasted that their Syrian-Iraqi base would become a springboard from which to launch an Islamic conquest of the Middle East and Europe. They  have retreated to their spiritual capital of Raqqa in Syria for the final battle to the death.

They will lose . But who will win? And what will they win? Assad, Russia, the US and its Western allies, Iraq, the Kurds, Turkey, Iran, a score  or more of rebel forces—all are directly involved in the fighting. Then there are there are the backers—or interested parties: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, Kuwait, the EU, the United Arab Emirates, Somalia, Afghanistan and the wider Islamic world.

It looks as if Assad will regain and remain in power for the foreseeable future—but he will be a political shadow of his former self.   Neither the Trump Administration nor any of its European or Arab allies have any stomach for removing a secular despot who can be replaced by another fanatic Islamic despot. And besides, he will have the military support of Iran and Russia.

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Steve Trevethan

Idlib gas attack? Is “Not Proven” currently the least worst verdict?

By Steve Trevethan | Mon 10th April 2017 - 12:50 pm

 

Scottish juries have the choice of three verdicts – Guilty, Not Guilty and Not Proven. This multiple choice is much more real to life than the “English” binary or oppositional choice of guilty or not guilty.

In non-judicial or “everyday terms” the Scottish three-way choice when facing a decision is “yes”; “no”; “I don’t know.” The Scottish choice seems to be closer to real life and so is worth using when considering and possibly taking action on matters of and relating to armed conflict which deals in death, mutilation, madness, theft and profit as well as, if not always, bravery and altruism.

Here are some questions and comments which appear to indicate that a Not Proven verdict is currently the most accurate fit before, it is hoped, an accurate analysis of responsibilities for the gas attacks is made.

How do we know what we are told and shown is reasonably genuine?

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Posted in Op-eds | 78 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Tim Farron: Why I support Trump’s Syria strike

By NewsHound | Sun 9th April 2017 - 2:27 pm

Tim Farron has written for the Guardian about why he has decided to support the US action in Syria on Friday morning. There are caveats, though:

However, we disagree with the way in which he conducted it – unilaterally, without allies, outside of a wider strategy. Trump saw a wrong and wanted to react, no doubt in large part to differentiate himself from Barack Obama. But taking matters into his own hands without thinking of the consequences, without a wider plan, without considering what next, exposes both his naivety about how the world works and his potential to create instability on an international scale.

So, how should the UK respond now? Trump has made it clear that this was a one-off, which Michael Fallon has echoed, and we should welcome that. This wasn’t about intervention in Syria. The purpose was twofold: to send the strongest possible signal of condemnation of Assad’s actions, and to ensure he is much less likely to be able to act in that way again. The Syrian regime and their Russian allies may be acting outraged on their respective state television channels, but they have been sent a message they will surely not now ignore.

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Steve Walpole

Successfully defending a Syrian safe area

By Steve Walpole | Sat 8th April 2017 - 8:59 am

On Thursday on Question Time Tim Farron spoke in favour of protecting Syrian people from the murder visited on them by Assad’s military.  I applaud Tim’s decision to do so, especially in the light of earlier Lib Dem votes against military action. However, in doing so I have to insert the caveat that a solution based on air power alone is in fact no solution at all.

To illustrate my argument I must take you all back before the Iraq war and to the North and South Iraq No Fly Zones. In the north the NFZ was a success, with very few civilian casualties caused by the Iraqi military. In the south however, it could not have been more different, with villages being decimated and the genocide of an entire people very nearly enabled.

So what was the difference between the Northern and Southern No Fly Zones? Quite simply, it was the Kurdish ground troops protecting their people from murder by Saddam’s security forces. There was no equivalent in the south and so the armed forces were able to act with impunity (albeit without the comfort of air cover), murdering their people and even re-routing the Euphrates in order to starve the Marsh Arabs.

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Martin Horwood

Martin Horwood writes…Trump’s step into very dangerous waters

By Martin Horwood | Fri 7th April 2017 - 10:52 am

American bombing in Syria may make Donald Trump a hero on the streets of Idlib. Those fighting for simple democratic rights in Syria felt bitterly let down by the west in 2013 when we failed to take action the first time there was good evidence that the monstrous Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons on his own people.

We still live with the consequences of that inaction. We were warned our intervention against Assad might make the situation worse. The situation got worse anyway as Assad continued to kill his own people in their thousands with impunity. Millions fled their homes. The sudden rise of Isis/Daesh added a twisted new complication and cover for much larger-scale foreign intervention but by Russia instead of the west. But devastating Russian firepower was aimed much more frequently at the democratic rebels who were pounded into the ground at Aleppo. Increasingly it looked as though Assad’s relentless brutality had paid off and he could even get away with more chemical attacks in clear breach of international law.

So does this make Trump right to strike?

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems respond to US air strikes on Syria

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 7th April 2017 - 10:07 am

It was quite disconcerting to wake up this morning to see that Donald Trump had launched air strikes. There is no question that Syria needs to be dealt with. You just can’t have any government getting away with gassing its own people. I just feel uneasy about Donald Trump being in charge of this. Does he even have a proper strategy? I also feel uneasy about our Government just slipping into line behind him.

On Question Time last night, Tim Farron was talking about the importance of establishing no fly zones and of humanitarian aid, but made clear that doing nothing was not an option in the face of an attack as horrific as the one we saw earlier this week.

He has since described Trump’s action as “proportionate” but went on to say that our Government’s response was not sufficient:

The attack by American forces was a proportionate response to the barbarous attack by the Syrian government on its own people.

The British government rather than just putting out a bland statement welcoming this should now follow it up and call an emergency meeting of the Nato alliance to see what else can be done, be that more surgical strikes or no fly zones.

Evil happens when good people do nothing, we cannot sit by while a dictator gasses his own people. We cannot stand by, we must act.

I don’t always agree with what they say, but in situations like this, I always look for the views of three people: Paddy, Ming and Julie Smith

On Twitter, Paddy said:

I also had a conversation with Julie on Twitter:

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Disastrous Middle East victory

By Tom Arms | Fri 30th December 2016 - 5:00 pm

 

It looks as if the fighting in Iraq and Syria will draw to a close in 2017. We won and lost.

Isis,  Isil, Daesh, Al-Nusra, A lQaeeda, whatever name the Jihadists call themselves  have been pushed out of the remains of Aleppo and are hanging on by their blood-soaked fingertips in Mosul and Raqqa.

Also destroyed and seeking peace terms are Western-backed rebels in the Free Syrian Army and its dozens of feuding constituent parts.

The Obama Administration and its 13 allies backing air strikes could claim victory.  They may even try to do so.  And in terms of denying the Jihadists a territorial base, there are justifiable grounds for a victory claim.

However, Islamic extremism is far from defeated. Jihadists have repeatedly displayed their prowess in filling political vacuums wherever they occur, and Western intelligence agencies are issuing dire warnings of attacks on Western soil orchestrated by bitter battle-hardened extremists in full flight from the Middle East.

No, the real winners are Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Iran and Hezbollah.  And the real result is a massive defeat for the democratic hopes of the 2011 Arab Spring and a  victory for tyranny

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Posted in Op-eds | 22 Comments
Joe Otten

Aleppo must be a wake up call

By Joe Otten | Tue 20th December 2016 - 12:17 pm

Amid the humanitarian catastrophe that has been the siege and fall of Aleppo, both supporters and opponents of earlier calls for military action by the West against Assad have been claiming vindication by events. Perhaps some are relieved that the TV pictures of bloodied children in rubble can be attributed to Russian bombs rather than Western ones.

And perhaps we are guilty – as the EU is supposedly guilty of welcoming closer ties with Ukraine – of seeing a potential for good in the Arab Spring. Torment nobody with the promise of freedom and democracy unless you can deliver it, at gunpoint if necessary? Don’t start a civil war you can’t win, however bad your government?

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 29 Comments
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