Twitter-Joke in Beirut: Sheikh Nasrallah says: Tell Obama, in case he is scared, we can start first!
The "No" vote in the House of Commons against a strike on Syria is a triumph of parliamentary democracy.
LONDON. “I am ashamed to be British today”, my friend said this morning. “How can we vote against helping to stop chemical weapon attacks on Syrian children?” She was not the only one in London who woke up on Friday and could not believe that the House of Commons voted down a government motion to join the US in attacking the Syrian regime in response to its apparent use of chemical weapons against its citizens on August 21st.
But there it is. The House of Commons said “No” to belligerent Prime Minister David Cameron. The shock of his defeat was so great that he even promised to respect the will of Parliament. The PM could have ordered the military strike without a Commons vote, but he submitted to a ballot beforehand because Britain is still traumatised by the disastrous Iraq experience of 2003, when London went to war after Tony Blair lied to the people about Iraq’s supposed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Not a successful strategy for Cameron. “Cameron’s authority at home and abroad has now tanked”, writes Hugo Dixon in Breaking views” (http://www.breakingviews.com/hugo-dixon-cameron-uk-hurt-by-syria-vote-fiasco/21104718.article)
The Tory party chief did not plan well ahead of the vote, did not listen to the mood of the people – either on the streets orin his own party – and has consequently suffered what will be remembered as a humiliating defeat. The Tory-friendly “Times” reported that someone in 10, Downing Street called triumphant Labour Party leader Ed Miliband loudly and clearly a “f…..g c..t” yesterday night over his opposition to a strike (http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3854838.ece). How very angry this somebody must have felt, being humiliated by Miliband.
But without an exit strategy, military intervention was in the best case always going to be merely a face-saving operation for the West as Michael Kerr of King’s College told me this week: “Given that the West has not been directly arming opposition fighters it seems unlikely that the aim of military intervention would be to remove the regime”. (http://www.profil.at/articles/1335/560/365312/syrien-der-sturz-assads-vor-gesehen) There was a nice Twitter battle last night between British journalists Mehdi Hassan of the Huffington Post and Gideon Rachman of the FT after Operation Shock and Awe in the Commons: (https://twitter.com/search?q=gideon%20rachman&src=typd). The intervention controversy has created two camps, with valid arguments on each side. Yes, we do not want anyone to use chemical weapons. But no, Syria does not allow for a “nice clean war” as if there ever is such a thing: Syria is a diplomatic and strategic quagmire, where civil war is raging between a ruthless regime and heart-eating extremist rebels of various persuasions. “Sometimes it takes courage to conclude of foreign conflicts that we can only do more harm than good by meddling in them”, wrote Simon Jenkins in “The Guardian” (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/29/syria-more-courage-to-say-nothing-can-do)
Especially as we cannot be sure how the Middle East would react to another American-led intervention. A friend sent me an image from Beirut, in which we see Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nasrallah cheerfully smiling and asking: “Tell Obama, in case he is scared, we can go first.” So the moral dilemma remains: Syria's children need our help, but does the Middle East need more American and European soldiers?
All this was properly discussed in the historic and dramatic debate in the House of Commons last Thursday. As if he has seen the debate on BBC's parliamentary channel Barack Obama has announced he will seek approval of his Congress as well before he attacks (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/world/middleeast/syria.html?hp&_r=0) If parliament says "No" to its Prime Minister when he proposes a war without a proper plan, then this might be a good thing. My friend does not need to be ashamed to be British today.