In a world without hypocrisy anyone guilty of war crimes would be held accountable; not just those whom the U.S. or the West decides should be held accountable.
Lets start from the beginning. They were under the illusion that moderate rebels would defeat both the extremist IS and non democratic Assad and would go on to establish a democratic Western friendly Syria; which would in turn severe ties with Iran. In the longer term practically the whole of the Middle East would be Western friendly, there would be no IS or groups like it, Iran would have no Arab ally and Russian influence in the region would go downwards. Everyone would be happy.
At present the U.S. has no clear policy over Syria. Most of what it tried to do has failed. Striking Assad would look great but in reality wouldn't accomplish much.
The U.S. has dominated the region for decades. Why would a Russian presence in Syria ''spell doom for the west''? Given that the U.S. has had it way in the region for decades and the region is a big mess; a Russian presence in Syria [which dates back to the Cold War] may be a stabilising factor. Irrespective of how one feels about Putin lets not forget that Russia [along with Iran] played a big role in preventing IS gaining victory in Syria. An IS victory in Syria would have had major implications in Iraq and elsewhere.
As Theresa May gears up for war in Syria, we should remember what hypocrites we are about chemical warfare in the Middle East
''This does not mean any excuses for the Syrian government – though I suspect, having seen Russia’s Syrian involvement with my own eyes, that Putin might have been getting impatient about ending the war and wanted to eradicate those in the last tunnels of Douma rather than wait through more weeks of fighting. Remember the cruelty of Grozny.''
''But in our desire to concentrate minds on Syria, we’re not mentioning the Iran gassings – Iran being another one of our present-day enemies, of course – and this may be because of our lack of official memory. More likely it’s because of what happened: the institutionalisation of chemical warfare, the use of chemicals by Saddam who was then an ally of the West and of all the Gulf Sunni states, our frontline Sunni hero. The thousands of Iranian soldiers who were to die were referred to on Iraqi radio after they crossed the frontier. The “Persian insects” had crossed the border, it announced. And that’s how they were treated. For the precursors for the Iraqi gas came largely from the United States – one from New Jersey – and US military personnel later visited the battlefront without making any comments about the chemicals which were sold to the Iraqi regime, of course, for “agricultural” purposes. That’s how to deal with insects, is it not?''
''This is a very bad moment in Middle East history – and, as usual, it is the Palestinians who will suffer, their own tragedy utterly forgotten amid this madness. So we are going to “war”, are we? And how do we get out of this war once we have started it? Any plans, anyone? What if there’s a gigantic screw-up, which wars do tend to usually produce? What happens then?''
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