Syria

It is the biggest lie: the product of “liberal realists” in Anglo-American politics, scholarship and the media who ordain themselves as the world’s crisis managers, rather than the cause of a crisis. Stripping humanity from the study of nations and congealing it with jargon that serves western power designs, they mark “failed”, “rogue” or “evil” states for “humanitarian intervention”. An attack on Syria or Iran or any other US “demon” would draw on a fashionable variant, “Responsibility to Protect”, or R2P, whose lectern-trotting zealot is the former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans, co-chair of a “Global Centre”, based in New York. Evans and his generously funded lobbyists play a vital propaganda role in urging the “international community” to attack countries where “the Security Council rejects a proposal or fails to deal with it in a reasonable time”.

We hear little of a Syrian pipeline Assad won’t agree to, or Julian Assange’s assertion that documents show we have been looking to interfere in Syria for several years. Instead, US leaders advocate action that will likely be incendiary or ineffective, with poor international and popular support, and no legal basis. Clearly playing the world’s rogue cop is a relatively easy, high-profile role. But long term, challenging, collaborative work to provide funds, food, doctors, aid workers, and political leadership –like championing a resolution to refer Assad’s actions to the International Criminal Court – are more likely to achieve a lasting, positive legacy. What specifically of unending chatter about the red line? First, killing breeds hatred regardless of techniques, as a classic scene from “The Princess Bride” teaches kids through the swashbuckling, Spanish fencer’s chant: “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” (no clarification on weaponry needed).