Thursday 8th March

And each day on the news more and more horror stories are emerging out of Syria, the latest Bete-Noir, in what at times seems a never ending story.   Is it really getting worse, or is it that the news media are realizing that Syria is at last newsworthy.  After months when the uprising was being largely unreported, or reported with less prominence than today the ratchet seems to have been applied, whether by news editors, or responding to voices off from politicians is unclear.  What worries me is that the language being used is so similar to the build up to both Iraq and Libya that I fear we may be sleepwalking into another conflict.  Not that the cause of the rebels is not a just one, as were those in Libya and maybe in Iraq too, but is it being used as some sort of a convenient fig-leaf for a neo-con regime change agenda.  We have been here before, and maybe this is the new diplomacy so cleverly used by the IRA in Ulster, a combination of the ballot box and the bullet, because there is no doubt that someone, possibly us, is organizing and arming the rebel movement.   I am no apologist for Saddam Hussein or Gadhafi, both quite unpleasant and ruthless dictators in their use of power, but both actually quite good at ensuring that ordinary Libyans and Iraqis were well educated and had hospitals and some would argue a better life than many of their neighbours that we cosied up to, and are still our best friends, such as Saudi Arabia.  But maybe the Syrians didn’t buy enough of our aeroplanes and tanks for our liking.  Let us just hope that however the Syrian drama ends, it ends quickly and with as little bloodshed as possible.