the playing mantis wrote:
its mind boggling that the west wants to topple a secular, fairly stable, fairly 'onside' regime
1.) The West, and Russia, are not at all keen on chemical weapons being used.
2.) Assad has never been "Onside", nor stable, only relatively stable.
He is allied with Iran, and the Israelis had to bomb his attempts at nuclear power/arms a few years back.
3.) The Iranian connection is key, this is all part of the lead up to a confrontation with Iran over nuclear weapons, oil and how oil is traded.
We have been building up to it since the Shah was toppled, Iran fighting the US and the UK by a proxy war using Hezbollah, both militarily and economically.
Those IEDs that have killed so many British troops in Iraq..."Made In Iran".
4.) This is also part of a battle to supply Europe with gas.
The Russians have their pipeline, but the Sunni Qataris want to connect theirs to one in Turkey, through you guessed it...Syria.
They want Shia Assad out so that can happen.
The Russians want Assad in power so that this does not happen, or at least they want to get their say in who replaces Assad if he becomes untenable.
And the UK gets a lot of LPG from Qatar, and we sell them arms, so we are ready to listen to their aims.
Qatar backs The Muslim Brotherhood.
5.) Saudia Arabia is also Sunni, but backs the more extreme Wahabi rebels. Saudi Arabia is a fierce rival of Qatar, so whilst it wants Assad out, it is with the aim of keeping a lid on Qatari ambitions and also to promote it's own oil and gas supplies.
6.) The USA is relatively economically weaker than it has been for a long time, so whilst it has the technology to fight this war, the Gulf states have largely funded the fighting.
And I believe, held hitherto unprecedented influence over US government policy.
the playing mantis wrote:
it may not be a nice thing to say, but in the Arab world strongman, unsavoury leaders are seemingly the only ones who can maintain any sort of widespread control and have a relatively stable society. democracy doesnt work.
in these cases its a case of better the devil you know, be it saddam, gaddafi or bashar.
Historically there is something to be said for that view.
But Morocco shows a relatively more enlightened constitutional Monarchy can work, though the King is very powerful, and who would want to be a citizen of a country under one of these despots?
The Arab world appears to be going through it's attempts to practice democracy and in doing so has unleashed a lot of chaos.
(Just my view on things).
