Once again

At the Guardian , Seumas Milne argues that the race to intervene in Syria is depressingly familiar: “As in Iraq and Sudan (where President Clinton ordered an attack on a pharmaceuticals factory in retaliation for an al-Qaida bombing), intelligence about weapons of mass destruction is once again at the centre of the case being made for a western missile strike. In both Iraq and Sudan, the intelligence was of course wrong. But once again, UN weapons inspectors are struggling to investigate WMD claims while the US and its friends have already declared them ‘undeniable.’ Once again they are planning to bypass the UN security council. Once again, they are dressing up military action as humanitarian, while failing to win the support of their own people.”

He points out that no one is even sure who is responsible for the chemical attack in Ghouta.

The Assad regime has chemical weapons, but there are reports that the rebels have them too. Milne questions motive: Governments forces “have been gaining ground in recent months and the US has repeatedly stated that chemical weapons use is a ‘red line’ for escalation.” Would they risk a Western intervention at this point. On the other hand, “the rebel camp (and its regional sponsors), which has been trying to engineer a western intervention in the Libya-Kosovo mould for the past two years to tip the military balance, clearly has an interest in that red line being crossed.”

And then there are questions about the outcome of a Western intervention: “Even if the attacks are limited, they will certainly increase the death toll and escalate the war. The risk is that they will invite retaliation by Syria or its allies – including against Israel – draw the US in deeper and spread the conflict. The west can use this crisis to help bring Syria’s suffering to an end – or pour yet more petrol on the flames.”

One of the basic principles of Christian just war theory is that war is only justified if there is a real chance that the war will successfully improve conditions. That’s far from clear in Syria, and the character of the rebels makes it just as likely that Western intervention will just make things worse for the Syrian people and the entire region.

Assad is a brute. But the wicked are grass, flourishing in the morning and withered by afternoon. It’s a hard word, but sometimes the best thing to do in response to tyranny is to wait it out.