Hague of the FO

IT MUST HAVE SEEMED LIKE a masterful ploy hatched by the UK‘s Foreign Office in conjunction with France’s Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. The idea was to put pressure on the Assad regime by threatening to arm the Syrian opposition; in this way they hoped to encourage Syria into peace talks next month. So William Hague, our Foreign Secretary, and his French counterpart took themselves off to Brussels to persuade our European allies not to continue with the arms embargo against Syria when it comes up for renewal.

            

            They got their way and now the British and the French have a free hand (although they had little or no support from other European countries). Hague was restrained when he appeared before the cameras after the fateful decision. The so-called ‘Rolls Royce’ of the civil service had once more lived up to the soubriquet. The Foreign Office must have felt quite smug, as they listened to their political master at the press conference following the meeting.

            

            Meanwhile, the Russians were viewing such developments with hostility. The Russians have a vital seaport in Syria overlooking the Mediterranean, in which it parks its navy; and as such looks dimly upon any threat that may result in its loss…which of course is what the defeat of Assad would mean.

            

            Now Putin has allowed batteries of long range S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to be sent to Assad as a deterrent to any no-fly zone the West may try imposing on Syria. The trouble is, that the entrance of the S-300 missiles into the Syrian conflict, now poses a threat to Israel, who have been carrying out bombing raids over Syria to try and stop missiles from Iran getting into the hands of Hezbollah.

           

             Benjamin Netanyahu is not a man to be trifled with; his hero is Winston Churchill and he means what he says; and he says that if these missiles land on Syrian soil, Israel will act. Israel would be right in doing so, because the threat from Iranian missiles in the hands of Hezbollah is of a clear and present danger to the state of Israel.

BRITAIN AND FRANCE dropped a stone into the pond, in the hope of bluffing Assad into peace talks. Now the ripples have advanced beyond any limit expected by Britain and France. Israel now stands ready to be drawn deeper into the conflict if the S-300 missiles find themselves being unloaded at a Syrian port.

           

             The UK has (like France) been eager to help the Syrian opposition. They could and should have replicated their intervention in Libya, as the Syrian opposition hoped they would do, but at the very beginning of this conflict. But they held back and allowed a mish-mash of jihadists from all over the Muslim world to intervene on either side’s behalf. Now we have a complete mess, and our government is considering arming the very people who would have been cheering the brutal murder of drummer Lee Rigby last Wednesday.

            

              It is utter madness to provide arms for these people, and the House of Common’s deserve to be heard before the government foolishly embarks upon such a misadventure. We are in the middle of cutbacks, especially to our nation’s defence; yet we blather on as if we still ruled half the world. It embarrasses me to hear our leaders behaving in such a manner. Leave Syria to its own devices. We could have helped early on in the crises, but we failed to do so because, as we were told by our politicians ‘Syria is not like Libya’, well it once was, but we passed along.

THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE cannot help itself when it comes to the Arab world; its Arab sympathies have become renowned particularly, one might fancifully assume, since T. E. Lawrence romanticised the Arab in the Seven Pillars of Wisdom. As such, the Foreign Office has always been seen and described as Arabist to this very day - thus meeting scepticism from Israel, who distrusts the British Foreign Office.

            

             If those batteries of S-300 missiles turn up in Syria, the Foreign Office will be partly to blame having            played its silly game of poker. There will be no point in trying to persuade Israel not destroy the S-300s if they turn up overlooking the Golan Heights no matter how much such an action would further inflame the region. The Foreign office misplayed its hand and should now keep its own council