ISIS and Israel will benefit most from unilateral US strikes
The six year old war in Syria, exasperatingly confusing to outsiders with its many protagonists, witnessed a new and dangerous dimension in the US missile attack on Al-Shayrat airfield, from where the chemical attack that killed 70 plus civilians allegedly originated. The attack mirrored, but on a broader scale, the wanton air raids regularly conducted by Israel, and when Syria retaliated recently with its anti-aircraft missiles, the ultra-right Israeli Defence Minister threatened to destroy its entire air defence system. The maiden US strike President Trump ordered was also without Congressional backing or the UN fig leaf. Whether it accomplishes its stated purpose of deterring future heinous chemical attacks, or is repeated for the flagrant final goal of regime change, there is certain to be an inadvertent winner, the ISIS, with new recruits sure to flock to its banners. Sophisticated ISIS propaganda can lure more fighters after US intervention, especially if it involves ‘collateral damage’ to civilians. Destroying Syria totally, like Iraq and Libya before, just to de-seat President Bashar al Assad, will have familiar unintended consequences.
The nerve agent gas Sarin is indeed a terrible weapon which even Adolf Hitler was loath to use in World War II, despite Nazi Germany possessing vast stocks of it and the Allies none. In the prevailing confused situation in Syria, it is next to impossible to accurately determine whether the beleaguered regime or a well planned ‘false flag’ operator was behind the dreadful deaths in Khan Sheikhun. But that hard-headed businessman, now volatile President Trump, who banned entry of Syrian refugees, was now touchingly moved by pictures of gassed children to order destruction of one air base, leaving Syrian air power elsewhere intact! Syria called it a ‘blatant act of aggression’, Russia has sought a UNSC meeting and Iran condemned the ‘dangerous’ strike, while the Syrian National Coalition, UK, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the usual suspect, Israel, have all hailed it. So many cooks, all serving over-peppered dishes, point to a bleak future for the long suffering Syrian people.