Military help over the past three years from Russia and Iran, which also backs Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and Shi’ite Muslim militias in Iraq, has allowed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to crush the rebel threat to topple him.
For the parent of a murdered Syrian child, the current western focus on the exact method of murder must feel strange. As if Assad was well within his rights to slaughter innocents using regular bombs, and his only offence was to use chlorine or sarin, inflicting a death so painful the footage is unbearable to watch. So unless there’s a plan for action once guilt is established, demanding an investigation sounds a lot like an excuse to do nothing in the hope that soon we’ll all be talking about something else.
Syria will be one of the battlefields, most likely the key battlefield, in which that confrontation plays itself out. As clashes between Israel and Iran mount, it is hard to see this White House staying out of the fight.
For the parent of a murdered Syrian child, the current western focus on the exact method of murder must feel strange. As if Assad was well within his rights to slaughter innocents using regular bombs, and his only offence was to use chlorine or sarin, inflicting a death so painful the footage is unbearable to watch. So unless there’s a plan for action once guilt is established, demanding an investigation sounds a lot like an excuse to do nothing in the hope that soon we’ll all be talking about something else.
Syria will be one of the battlefields, most likely the key battlefield, in which that confrontation plays itself out. As clashes between Israel and Iran mount, it is hard to see this White House staying out of the fight.
