MY ENEMY'S ENEMY IS MY friend. I believe that in terms of
Realpolitik this axiom has served Western democracies well. It proved its worth
during the Second World War when we jumped into bed with Stalin, who's
murderous approach to power equalled (I
would even say surpassed) that of Hitler's Germany. Stalin's record in peace
time accounted for the deaths of millions of Kulaks as well as millions who
died in the Gulag Archipelago; while further millions died during the Soviet
Union's Great Famine in the 1930s; a decade when left-wing literary apologists
such as George Bernard and Sidney and Beatrice Webb travelled to the Soviet
Union declaring it everything they imagined a socialist paradise should be.
During
the Second World War and after the Nazi-Soviet Pact fell through; Hitler turned
East after his failure to overcome the RAF in the Battle of Britain: the
onetime soul mates now became the bitterest of enemies; and Stalin courted the
Western democracies- and thus, rightfully so, began an unholy alliance brought
together in the mutual self-interest of Western democracies and communist
totalitarianism; both now united in the destruction of Nazism: needs must when
the Devil calls.
Bashar
al-Assad the president of what is left of Syria as a functioning nation is also
a tyrant as was his father. But neither of them could have compared with Stalin
in their cruelties which were of course multiform in their patterns of
wickedness. The West rightly deplored his rule, and even more so when the Arab
Spring materialised: a spring which the West were intoxicated by because
democracy was on the rise throughout the Arab world and old tyrants were
overthrown and Bashar al-Assad was no different to Saddam Hussein, President
Mubarak, or Gaddafi.
The old
dictators one by one met with their comeuppance; and how we in the West celebrated
the demise of these sadistic tormentors. The Arab world was 'coming home' to
democracy. It was of course a fantasy and those cruel despots were there for a
reason – to keep their different nation's tribalism's from overflowing into
religious conflict.
We in
the West who thought we knew better than the dictators who kept their nations
united against internal religious conflict, between Shia and Sunni; and Shia
and Sunni against Christian, all deeply antagonistic toward each other and
ready to explode at any time into civil conflict were it not for the power of a
dictator. Were it not for the rigidity of government they lived under, then
civil war in these Arab countries would have erupted at any time; has happened
in Egypt when Mubarak was driven from office only to be replaced by the Muslim
Brotherhood.
AS FAR AS THE West is concerned today; the Stalin figure we
have to align ourselves with in order to defeat ISIS is Assad. As a supporter
of Israel I have no more love for him than any other believer in democracy. But
as Netanyahu said 'it is the better the devil you know', than what might come
after. It is what comes after that should engage the West, not treating Assad
as something you scrape off your shoes when taking you dog for a walk: a
process which you may think appropriate – but needs must when Devil plays his
hand.
The
Russian president, Vladimir Putin has said as much. As with the Second World
War national self-interest determines that temporary alliances must be formed in
order to destroy a common enemy. What comes next after the common enemy is no
longer a thorn in the side of the West and Russia? What will come will be Assad left in power
and ISIS destroyed. Then comes the rebuilding of Syria, and the West, having
hopefully learnt its lesson can play a significant part in its creation. But to
do so a role must be found for Assad: until Sunni and Shia learn to live with each
as protestant and catholic have had to
do since the Reformation, then in Syria's case a strongman at the helm is
needed; and Assad must be that man, be it with a 'friendly' Western hand on his shoulder.
Sometimes, if you put worthy moral principles above Realpolitik; then
commendable liberal ethics, founded as they usually on a guilty conscience,
will cause more death and destruction than a pragmatic and questionable
toleration of the status quo.
This is
the lesson of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria - are the citizens of these
nations better off today without Saddam, Gaddafi, and Assad? I think not. The great liberal
interventionism piloted into existence by Tony Blair, and continued by David
Cameron in Libya, was at the very least naive. Liberal interventionism was
liberal arrogance, comparable to that displayed in the age of the British Empire.
Tony
Blair went beyond ridding the Middle East of dictators; he saw the chance to
create democratic societies in place of dictators. This narcissistic and deluded
visionary truly believes that the people living under the likes of Saddam, Gaddafi,
and Assad would grasp the democratic straw Blair and Cameron gave them. They
believed at the time and still no doubt do so today, that democracy cannot
possibly be rejected, no matter what culture its seeds are sown within; the
soil in which they are planted will always fertilise into democracy. This is
the liberal arrogance that in its judgement is as colonial in its assumptions
as the prejudices that accompanied the spread of Empire.
THERE IS no future for Syria unless, like Russia, the West
comes to an accommodation with Assad. But present Western leaders like Cameron
have vented so much of their spleen on Assad that they would see it as a defeat
in domestic political terms to now turn round and tell his people that an
accommodation now has to be acceded to, after being defeated by parliament in
an attempt to intervene militarily in Syria.
On top
of which it was the West's current hate figure Vladimir Putin who now suggested
an alliance to overthrow ISIS in Syria. The Putin that has rendered asunder the
Ukraine, and who's ancient but visually impressive Bear bombers, torment our airspace
almost daily to test our response, is also fearful of the influence of Islamism
and what it could do to Russia
In
today's world with the rise of Islamism, the West must procure for itself any
solution it would under any other circumstance turn its nose up at. But the
West, particularly in Europe, is now being assailed by the flotsam of the
wreckage that the likes of Blair and Cameron created in Iraq and Libya, as well
as Cameron's uncompromising attitude to Assad in Syria. Migrants have crossed the Mediterranean from
North Africa and landed on Italian and Greek shores and entered Turkey from
Syria. A politician's first responsibly is to their own country and its
citizens.
Our
country has to be put before any other country by our serving politicians; and
any policy they come up with that negates this principal is wrong both morally
and empirically as far as the numbers are concerned and the damage the influx
can do to the indigenous population in terms of housing, schooling and medical
care – Realpolitik is the one way
No comments:
Post a Comment