SYRIA, WHAT OH WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

I continue to look at the situation in Syria with great sadness. So much death, so much destruction. In a day and age where we would have hoped for all of the world to be civilised. Unfortunately in many places it is still very far from being the case. Syria is obviously one of those places.

As always I will start by confessing to being no expert on the political situation in Syria. What I do know however, is that it is a very complicated war. Aside from complicated, it seems to be a rather cruel war, with both sides seeming to care very little about civilian casualties.

In case you know absolutely nothing about the situation in Syria, let me give you the dummies version. The current Syrian regime, the Assad family, has held power since 1971. Where as normally in this area of the world, religion would be the catalyst for such divide, in this instance it does not seem to be the case. This unrest stems more from the governments long standing failure to improve the countries situation both economically and politically.

The civil war itself began in 2011. They say the straw that finally broke the camels back happened in March of that year. A bunch of children were jailed after they painted some anti-regime graffiti. Some of those children were killed whilst in detention. As a result in July 2011 the FSA (Free Syria Army) was formed. And pretty soon after that, both sides started killing civilians.

Since the beginning of the conflict over 400,000 citizens of Syria have been killed. Whilst over 5 million are said to have fled the country. A further 6 million remain displaced internally. And finally, but some may say most importantly, the regime in recent times has turned to chemical weapons attacks on its own citizens. The west has now responded with a recent airstrike on three key chemical weapons targets which were destroyed. Is this now the beginning of the “bigger war”?

This is where, for me, the dilemma lies. It is a true tragedy that the situation in Syria is as so. It’s an even worse tragedy that so many innocent civilians have had to perish in the process. But from an outside perspective what the hell can or should we do? It is pretty clear that all attempts at diplomacy have failed miserably. It is also clear, that Assad and the Syrian Army have one Vladimir Putin, and more specifically Russia in its corner. So the question becomes how far are Assad, the Syrian government and Russia willing to go to protect their interests now that the west has become involved?

This is what scares me the most. You see, initially, I thought it best that the west stay out of the situation. As disgusting as it may seem, on some very basic level its none of our business. But upon reflection, there is just no conceivable way I can be ok with such barbaric loss of innocent life. So now I am resigned to the inevitability of some type of global intervention. War is war, but killing innocents should never be a part of it, and the rest of the world has to step up.

Now the question remains, how will Russia look at this? Do they really have an invested interest in the conflict in Syria and the Assad regimes politics, or is this just about making profit from the sale of weaponry? Hopefully it is the later. It wouldn’t be the first time that a global power turned gun dealer in a conflict it had nothing to do with. The US and Afghanistan come to mind. But I am not totally convinced it is just about that with Russia.

Does anyone else get the feeling that Putin is foaming up like a rabid dog in anticipation of getting something started? Anyone feel that he is just waiting for the right moment to display to the world just how powerful Russia is? Will he look to cement his legacy as the worlds most powerful leader of the most powerful nation? These three questions form the basis of my greatest concerns. Because if my suspicions are correct, and it all kicks off, the world will be in a huge amount of very deep excrement. Syria is a complicated situation, but it has also now become a critical one.