The rulers of Syria say they did not use chemical
weapons; it was the opposition that did. Maybe they are telling the truth;
maybe they are telling half-truths; maybe they are telling lies. History will
find out eventually what they did, and will judge them accordingly.
If it is proven that they committed the atrocities shown on
television, history will record that they did what they did in desperation
while facing a foreign led insurgency that they felt was threatening the very
existence of their nation. They responded in a horrifying manner to an
invasion, but their response was not unique in the annals of war history where
all sorts of ways were used to inflict maximum pain on combatants and
non-combatants alike.
Just ask the people of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki who were bombed with nuclear
weapons not because America
was facing an existential threat but to shorten the war as claimed by the
leaders in Washington .
A similar fate was inflicted on the civilian population of Dresden
where America
carpet bombed the city mercilessly without even explaining the necessity to do
so.
We do not know at this time if the rulers of Syria saw the
video that was shown on our television screens. And we do not know how they
might have reacted to the image of children and adult bodies dumped on the
floor and left for dead or left to die a horrible death. It could be that the
rulers of Syria
may now be willing to do everything in their power or accept any offer
presented to them that will end the conflict. If there is a hint of humanity in
them, they would be reaching out for such a scenario, hoping that a way can be
found to end the conflict, and that a good arrangement can be fashioned to make
it stick.
The aforementioned is what we do not know. But if in
response to what is happening in the Middle East, the current rulers of America decide to unleash their own weapons
against Syria ,
history will want to judge them too. The difference is that there will be no
guesses here because we know that they have seen the videos and have decided
that despite the horrors of war, they will escalate by sending Tomahawk
missiles to demolish a few buildings in Syria , and ignite a few fires. They
don't pretend this will bring back the dead, and they don't offer guaranties
that their action will not add to the dead and the maimed.
And they are smart enough not to dispute that innocent
people will get trapped under the fallen buildings, remaining there for as long
as a week or two, suffering as much as the people that were poisoned by the
chemicals – and maybe get rescued or maybe not. And neither will the smart
folks dispute that combatants as well as innocent civilians will lose limbs and
other parts of the body; or suffer burns to most of it, thus lead a life of
constant pain and living hell. Will the rulers of America then look at these people
in the eyes – be they Syrian or American – and say to them: Thank your lucky
stars that you didn't die by chemical poison? No, they will not do that because
they are smart enough to know better.
Well, President Barack Obama who is one of the rulers in America will soon give a speech to tell his
nation what he has in mind with regard to the situation in the Middle East . He can whip up the nation to a high level of
war fever or he can present his people with a creative scenario that will
involve all the players in the region, and those beyond it lined up one side or
the other in the conflict.
In that speech, the President can make an offer that the
rulers in Syria
who are willing to do everything in their power to sue for peace, will see his
offer as reasonable. He can make it so that they will want to jump at the
opportunity to end the conflict. He can make it so that they will accept a
scenario detailing a way to end the conflict, and showing the outlines of an
arrangement that will make the ensuing peace stick. This must be the foremost
preoccupation on the mind of the President at this time because the alternative
is the continuation of the horror that has been plaguing that part of the world
for more than half a century.
If, on the other hand, the Americans are going to entertain
the assumption that they will hurt the Syrian army just enough to force the
rulers of that country to come to the bargaining table, they must also
entertain the assumption that the Russians or the Iranians might have developed
a weapon that can tackle the slow flying Tomahawk and destroy it in mid-air.
The Russian, Iranian and Syrian generals would most certainly be eager to test
the new weapon in a real combat situation, wringing their hands with
anticipation. Accede to their wish, America , and you will be so
humiliated, you will want to have your head kicked.
As to the President, the American habit of blaming
everything that goes badly on the man at the top will kick in as it always
does, and the people will hold him responsible for everything that went bad in
the past, and everything that will go bad in the future. Moreover, it must be
known that the habit rarely comes without the companion habit of looking for
cheap reasons why the man was not up to the job. In the case of this President,
they will say he was only equal to half the W. This being a single U, it will
come to represent the words Underachiever and Underwhelming – maybe even Useless.
And you can bet that some people will go as far as comfort themselves and each
other with a remark like: Oh well, it was an Affirmative Action experiment that
did not go well. Let's not repeat it again.
All this could be in the cards for an America that
will no longer be seen as the liberator who rescues people in trouble, but seen
as a Dracula that had a Russian or Iranian stake driven into his Tomahawk
heart. Rightly or wrongly, the world will come to see that the threat plaguing
the human race for the past half century has been eliminated at long last, thus
making life a little more pleasant for all of us.
The ball is in your court, Barack Obama, blow it and you'll
make the W. as well as Trick Dicky look like a couple of saints.