Regardless of how ‘surgical’ strikes are claimed to be, military action is a blunt instrument that, in this case, is on the table merely because of a poverty of alternatives.
Part Two of an analysis of the geopolitical sectarian dynamics and possible fall-out of military intervention in Syria, looking at prospects for meaningful change, and summing up on intervention. Read Part One here.
Part One of a two-part analysis of the geopolitical sectarian dynamics and possible fall-out of military intervention in Syria. Read Part Two here.
Western readers need to understand why some Syrians support, while others oppose, a military intervention in their country.
Genocide is both taking on new forms in the era of democratic revolution and exposing the defective reactions of western states, says Martin Shaw.
Recent events in the Middle East and MENA region, not least the now infamous interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, have shown that the right and wrong dichotomy with good and evil players in a set frame is absolutely and inherently flawed.
War rhetoric in the media this week seemed to imply the impending end of Syria’s Assad regime and the spread of Syria’s civil war into a larger regional conflict, while key players carefully chose their words to emphasise the limits of conflict, and responses to any breach.
The momentum in the United States is shifting towards a larger-scale attack on the Assad regime. But even a limited one will transform the nature of the war, with region-wide consequences.
Soon, military action against the Assad regime by western powers may be all but inevitable. But what kind of action, for what purpose, in the service of what larger strategy?
The al-Qaeda linked “Jabhat al-Nusra” (al-Nusra Front) in Syria, stands accused of instigating a sectarian racist war against civilian Kurds in Syria’s northern Kurdish region, one that is escalating rapidly.
The probability that the United States will make a single military reponse to the chemical-weapons assault near Damascus is very high.
Countries wanting to aid the Syrian revolution must focus on local councils like that of Manjib, not the Syrian National Coalition, and act together.
