iranigirl2
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President Obama agreeing to give more help to the rebels in Syria is a Code Red decision in every sense.
It will almost certainly drench Syria in even more blood and it’s another danger signal that the war there is escalating and spreading far beyond its borders.
The announcement came on the same day as the UN declared that at least 93,000 people have been killed in Syria up to April, probably more. A year ago it was 10,000.
That’s 5,000 a month. Assuming the same rate of killing since April, the figure is now over 100,000.
Into this bloodbath, the West is about to send planeloads of weapons.
Syria’s rebels, a loose alliance of army deserters, Sunni civilians and al-Qaeda-linked fanatics, are now to be armed to the teeth by the world’s only superpower.
It’s one thing for a few thousand fighters from Hezbollah to join the war, or for the Gulf state of Qatar to supply weapons... It’s quite another for the world’s strongest power to back Sunni rebels against Shia forces in a civil war.
America has a poor record in the Middle East. It may be about to get worse. And the war threatens to get worse, too.
Already the danger is not just deadlier fighting within Syria. That’s already happening.
Government forces are beginning a new offensive against rebels who control half of the second city, Aleppo.
Fresh from victory in the strategic town of Qusair, the army is turning to the city of Homs, the cockpit of the revolution.
America may believe that by arming the rebels it can halt the regime’s advance before both cities are retaken.
But the war now involves fighters from the Lebanese group Hezbollah. They provided the muscle that made Qusair fall. Hezbollah, and Syria’s army, are being supplied by Iran. Russia is supplying President Assad’s forces. America is about to supply their enemies.
It’s the Cold War all over again – this time fought in the most volatile region of the world. It’s a proxy war that pushes American-Russian relations to a new low. The possibilities of miscalculation are endless.
Major powers getting dragged into regional conflicts have sparked World Wars in the past.
America is entering a sectarian war that is already spreading beyond Syria’s boundaries.
On the one side is a Sunni Muslim front, led by Saudi Arabia, backing the rebels.
On the other is a Shia front, led by the Saudis’ sworn enemy Iran.
America is now entering this intra-Muslim war, while at the same time confronting Iran. Its weapons against the Ayatollahs’.
It’s a war that is spreading. Syrian rockets and missiles have already landed in three countries: Israel, Lebanon and Turkey.
Syrian troops have been killed fleeing into Iraq.
Turkish warplanes have struck inside Syria; Syrian car bombs have killed dozens inside Turkey.
Iraq’s civil war has been re-ignited by the sectarian slaughter in Syria, with over 1,000 killed in the worst month of violence for five years.
The biggest danger is that the war in Syria will explode inside Lebanon.
It’s a fragile country, with terrible memories of a civil war that tore it to pieces.
It is dominated by the group now fighting inside Syria, Hezbollah.
And there has already been some fighting in Lebanon itself, between Sunni and Shia factions. Lebanon is a tinderbox waiting to explode.
Syria, President Assad once declared, is different. What he meant was that it would be safe from the Arab revolutions.
In that he was wrong. But he was right in saying that while Libya imploded, Syria would explode across the Middle East if violence grew. Syria’s revolution has done what revolutions often do, it has “changed utterly”.
So, in the next few days many of the world’s most powerful leaders will gather to discuss what is happening in Syria.
It will be one of the frostiest summits ever and perhaps one of the least successful.
At the G8 meeting in Enniskillen, President Obama and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will glare at each other, as rivals across a Middle Eastern chessboard.
Both have agreed peace talks are necessary and both signed up to a conference in Geneva this month.
That has been postponed indefinitely. Instead, both are backing their own sides in a sectarian slaughter in Syria.
David Cameron will host a chilly preview to the summit when he meets Mr Putin in Downing Street.
The summit is unlikely to achieve much, certainly not peace. Never believe a war cannot get worse.
In another year, 93,000 dead may seem like 10,000 did a year ago.
Could Syria be the spark that causes the Middle East to explode? - Bill Neely - Mirror Online
