Part 2: Military Intervention in Syria would be a Mistake

THE LAST point to make is perhaps the most important: we mustn't forget what the west has to gain from intervening in select foreign states: Money, increased arms sales, cheaper trade links for oil, the continued isolation of Iran.

US general Wesley Clark suggests that the latter point could be true- and part of a bigger picture of western hegemony. Speaking in 2007, Clark told the world how in 1991, the United States Deputy Secretary of Defence, Paul Wolfowitz, privately outlined to him a plan intent on: "cleaning up those old Soviet client regimes" over a five to ten year period.


Then, in 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld, then United States Secretary of Defence, told Clark how the US was planning to destabilise and take control of the middle-east by attacking seven countries: Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Syria, and finally Iran, with the view, he says, of creating "a new American century... before the next superpower comes along."

The plan suffered set-backs in 2003 as Muammar Qaddafi relinquished Libya's plans to manufacture nuclear arms, but it seems that the plan of invasion- or invasion by proxy- of these seven countries remains a possibility.

Six of the seven countries can be checked from this list, with well reported conflicts involving western military forces in Iraq, Libya, and Somalia; the Cedar Revolutionof Lebanon; the Western approval of South Sudan's secession from the north; and the recent tub-thumping towards intervention in Syria.

As diplomatic communication with Iran over their own nuclear enrichment program continue to falter, even the most ardent myopic would see that there is still time for Clark's complete insight to prove true.

"The truth about the Middle-East is if they had no oil there it would be like Africa- nobody is threatening to intervene in Africa," Clark concludes. "We keep asking for people to intervene and stop it."

One day after the violence in Houla, rebels in the West African country of Mali formed an alliance with Islamic groups. The government of the economically poor, cotton-rich (not oil-rich) nation were violently forced from the north of the country by The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, who now hold the region with the help of extremist group Ansar Eddine- largely believed to be a guise of Al-Qaeda.

The UN have said they will not recognise this new state, but, crucially, intervention is far from a reality.

The public in western states now realise that they have been lied to in order to support military intervention in the very recent past. We must learn from this history. As we condemn Bush and Blair's war-mongering tactics in Iraq, as we understand the spin that these governments used to popularise these invasions in the eyes of the public, it would be miserable if we were to make the same mistakes again.