AMERICA’S MEDDLESOMENESS IN SYRIA

When the news came that the United States has decided to send F-16 fighter jets and Patriot missiles to Jordan ostensibly to put to effect an imminent illegal no flight zone against Syrian government that is fighting a civil war with rebels determined to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad regime, it became obvious that America has never learnt anything from its misadventure in the Middle East in recent times.

In 2008, Dr. Fareed Zakaria, the host of GPS on CNN and one of the public intellectuals I admire most in the world, wrote a very interesting book, "The Post-American World". When this book came out some crazy neo-conservatives alleged that it was another work by a Muslim praying for the fall of America (For those who did not know, Fareed is an American Muslim of Indian extraction). But the position of the misguided neo-conservatives was a misrepresentation of what the book was all about. The book was about the way America has misused its sole superpower status in a changing world and in which a patriotic America(Fareed) was advocating for a change in the way America relate to the rest of the world. In the book Fareed was not actually writing about the decline of American power, as the United States continues to be the most dominant military power and is still the dominant economic powerhouse of the world, at least for now. Rather the book  was to remind America that the era in which it is the only power calling the shots are coming to an end, because there is now the rising of other powers notably China and India among others. Fareed wisely advocated that the United States should relate with the rest of the world using internationally recognized channels, like the United Nations, the NATO,etc and avoid unilateral interventions in conflict situation even if strategic American interest was at stake. When this book came out in 2008, it was on the Times Best Sellers list and there was a lot of buzz over it because the then presidential candidate, Barack Obama, was pictured clutching the book on the campaign trail. Of course Fareed is a staunch supporter of Obama, but the issue here is that Obama apparently did not take much from the book given the latest misadventure in Syria. The most sickening aspect of it is that America has come up with their familiar lies that the Syrian government was the ones using chemical weapons in the conflict even when the UN independent assessors of the sources of alleged chemical weapons used in the civil war were pointing towards the rebels. The world cannot forget in a hurry the lies that Saddam Hussien’s Iraq possesses chemical weapons with which America and United Kingdom deceived the world and invaded Iraq. It later turned out that there was no chemical weapons anywhere in Iraq. But by then Iraq had been destroyed and still being destroyed even as American soldiers have withdrawn from the Middle Eastern country. When one combines all the deaths in Iraq during the invasion and after and to this day, it would be obvious that millions of Iraqis have died through the fathom freedom that American President, George Bush promised, than those that were allegedly killed by Saddam in all his years of dictatorial rule in Iraq. At least under Saddam, all the religious groups know there places and they maintained it. There was no suicide bombing of Sunni and Shiite neighbourhoods under Sadam, even the few Christians in Iraq had a voice and even have Tareeq Aziz, a Christian as the Prime Minister of Iraq. But American freedom has brought disaster to Iraqi Christians who are leaving Iraq in droves, even as Shiites and Sunnis are slaughtering each other every other day. Is this what America is once again planning for Syria?

Now to make matters worse Syria is turning to be a convergence of a sort for Sunnis and Shiites from around the world to go and slaughter each other, thereby making the whole of Middle East unstable with dire consequences for Africa with its very large Muslim population. In Nigeria we are still reaping the dividends of American and her Western allies irresponsible overthrow of Muammar Ghaddaffi which put weapons in the hands of insurgents in Mali, Nigeria and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. It was not lost on many discernable Nigerians that the Nigerian jihadist who recently beheaded a British soldier in  London was before then seen distributing leaflets encouraging people to enlist to go and fight against Assad in Syria. While some are recruiting to fight Assad, others are recruiting to fight alongside Assad and his Hezbollah allies. This goes to show that the war in Syria unlike say, Libya, will indeed have dire consequences for the rest of the world.

Seeing that it would be very difficult to get a consensus at the United Nations Security Council, what with China and Russia resisting America’s intransigence, the United States appears to have made up its mind to go it alone under the guise that Jordan-a lackey of America-requested for the presence of the fighter jets and the Patriot missiles. But America cannot fool the world again. Besides, America’s intervention in Syria has no clear purpose and it has no clarity on who takes over after the fall of Assad. What they want to create is a dangerous vacuum that would be filled by jihadists who would then turn their guns against America and anyone else that caught their fancy. Today Syria with all its faults is a secular state in a region where the youths are being recruited by extremists and it beats my imagination why America wants to change that. No offence meant but I love it when I watch Syrian state television and I see female news casters wearing trendy clothes and are not forced to cover their heads as the extremists would want to do once they takeover  power. In Assad’s Syria, religion is a personal matter like in Europe and United States, yet America for whatever reasons want this orderly system to be replaced by extremists who would impose their religion on everyone else and make Syria a safe haven for terrorists. It appears to me that America wants extremists to take over much of Middle East so that their so-called war on terror would go on in perpetuity.