News & Activities Seminars British Special Forces Inside Syria
| 10 July 2012
Moreover, on Sunday 24 June, The Daily Star reported that Britain’s fighter planes were on stand-by to invade Syria in case Britain’s NATO ally, Turkey, decided to launch a strike on Syria. DEBKAfile said the British incursion was aimed at securing the start of western intervention in Syria to topple President Bashar Al Assad.
Earlier this year, the Israeli website also revealed that British troops and intelligence agents were operating in the Syrian city of Homs, assisting Syria’s armed rebels in their bloody battle against civilians and the Syrian army. Moreover, earlier this month, The Daily Star reported that Britain’s Special Air Service (SAS) and MI6 agents were setting up camps in Syria to assist armed rebels if a civil war would break out in the country.
This all and the recent report about the British incursion in Syria comes as earlier this month British Prime Minister David Cameron asked his fellow Tory MPs: “Where shall I invade next? I’ve done Libya” as he stopped in front of a map of the world at his Downing Street flat.
* Source: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/06/26/248134/syria/
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Iris Pissaride
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On intervention Strangely this has reminded me of an article written a long time ago but one that feels so relevant right now : John Stuart Mill's "A few words on Nonintervention" (1859) where he questions the consequences of intervention in the international level. Intervention can easily be counterproductive as it has proven to be in Iraq : as the author notes it is entrapped in a ferocious circle of violence. It is still true that in most cases seen in the world today if the people cannot gain their own freedom or create their own government they cannot easily sustain these by themselves either. Mill would go as far as stating that after an intervention there are only 3 ways for the new government to act: 1) begin to rule like previous governments 2) collapse and end up in a civil war 3) the intervenors would have to send in foreign support all the time. So far there is no way of forcing democracy, or, we have not seen a successful way yet in the countries where bigger powers have intervened. If one is to intervene in order to change a regime into a better one (how this is to be judged I do not know!) one needs to foresee the implications of such change of regime. Seen through the lens of communitarianism and cosmopolitan liberalism interventions are justifiable as means providing people with sets of values based on human rights. But through a different perspective the concept of non intervention can be seen as more important as it sustains a respectful-to-most principle of sovereignty. The Russian approach reminds us that non intervention has been a dominant norm designed to protect principles surrounding the concept of the sovereignty of the state such as political and territorial independence and integrity. It reminds us that power politics in international relations are often surrounded by the problems of double standards and that different situations can easily be manipulated and interpreted in different ways (one can bring to mind the intervention of Grenada in 1983 which is a small but much debatable account of the justifiability of intervention or non intervention). I believe that most of the time these debates end up in a much bigger debate : one that deals with priority of values . Non intervention cannot prevent tyrannic governments and suppression of rights but it can prevent chaos and never ending violence and sustain sovereign integrities- it can give us some kind of order. Intervention on the other hand can overthrow tyrannic regimes in the name of justice - but can start chaos and disorder through masked interests, a kind of chaos that may cross the borders of a particular country and nurture terrorism. The debate of order vs justice is one that will go on for years to come. The Russian approach though sheds some light on the meaning of the word justice in intervention : whose justice? whose interests? and with what means? The US led war on terror was to bring an end to terror but all it has done is bring chaos in Iraq ten years later. If the war on terror has brought more terror one cannot help but wonder if interventions and wars for justice might actually bring less justice. |
