A Moral Obscenity

"The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable and -- despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured -- it is undeniable.
"What is before us today is real and it is compelling. Our understanding of what has already happened in Syria is grounded in facts.
"...This international norm cannot be violated without consequences."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

The president of the United States of America is no longer equivocating. President Obama has been criticized from all corners of the political spectrum in the West, observing the chaos, misery and slaughter taking place in Syria with no sign of the situation easing. As conflict between the Alawite regime and its Syrian Sunni rebels increases, the introduction of Hezbollah fighters specializing in their own brand of terror has intensified the realization that the conflict is spreading.

Lebanon now stands on the brink of succumbing to the same kind of sectarian violence that brought it to its own civil war from which it has never recovered, now overtaking Syria. Syria, in fact, is now taking on an uncanny resemblance to Iraq in the first few years after the U.S. invasion that removed Saddam Hussein from tyranny there. That invasion did no favours to Iraq despite relief from Hussein, since it unleashed the full horrors of sectarian loathing and violence.

Iraqis who once welcomed the invasion and the presence of foreign troops, there ostensibly to protect civilians and guide a temporary coalition of Kurds, Sunni and Shia political elites to even-handed governance, now look back bitterly at what they have been left with; the Kurds content enough within their long-sought-after semi-sovereign territory and elsewhere vicious jihadist Sunni foreigners terrorizing both Sunni and Shia Iraqis, surmounting even the violence they wreak on one another.

Syria has spiralled into a much darker, deeper vortex of hatred between the sects. Each claiming to represent the only and one true faith, the other representing the insult of a heretic brand of worship in Islam. An abomination to the faith delivered to them by the Prophet Mohammed. And in his name and that of Islam, they surrender themselves to the nobility of martyrdom and jihad, inflicting murder with the intense passion of the righteous.

It is quite possible that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad miscalculated. The chemical engineering science of mixing toxic chemicals can be unpredictable. Sarin gas was mixed with other elements and the end result may have been a more deadly weapon than he had intended. Poisoning a handful of people as a warning is not quite in the same league as assaulting a community and reaping a harvest of an estimated thousand. That is a number that is capable of extracting disbelieving blame.

A blame demanding accountability. After all, the potential of the dread ownership of chemical weapons on the scale held by Syria, capable of inflicting untold damage on human lives was imagined as a worst-case scenario. The message was clear enough to the regime; much could be overlooked to keep the conflict in a situation of internal strife; the use of deadly poison gas as an efficient method of agonizing mass slaughter would be a game-changer.

And so, the United States, France, Britain and possibly Canada are now in one of those 'told you so' positions that pre-warning was clear, and the consequences of ignoring it could be anticipated. The flies in this particular ointment are many and varied. The West come to the rescue of civilians whose own government is slaughtering them in the most gruesome manner imaginable, leaving opportunity to the grasp of terrorist groups equal in evil intent to the regime whose behaviour emulates theirs.

By its very interference yet again in Middle East/Muslim affairs ensuring that resentment, inchoate rage and revenge will be in a heightened state; the expectation that there will be a resulting pay-back is not too far-fetched. But closer to the action, the lap-over of conflict impacting more heavily on geographic neighbours, where Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and Egypt, all of whom are now teetering perilously within viral conflicts will see them accelerated.

And there is the attack-vulnerability of Israel, the sole democratic state in the area upon whom its neighbours focus as a crucible of destabilization in the Middle East. Claimed as such because of its penchant for reacting when it is attacked, to defend itself from the goal of annihilation. And, because of its sole presence as a non-Muslim country in the Middle East, it is perennially accused of fomenting all the unrest that occurs anywhere in the geography.

Choices there are but few and complex, disturbing and unpredictable, for the West. Which will be blamed for non-interference, and castigated for interference. Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Mikdad of Syria promised an attack linking the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, in what would amount to a proxy war against Iran, Syria and Hezbollah would result as the trigger to "chaos in the entire world."

"If individual countries want to pursue aggressive and adventurous policies, the natural answer ... would be that Syria, which has been fighting against terrorism for almost three years, will also defend itself against any international attack."

Unfairly maligned, fighting for its life, portrayed as a malign regime prepared to sacrifice most of its majority population to ensure the perpetuation of the rule of the minority population. Poor Syria, what right-minded onlooker could fail to look with compassion on its trials and tribulations.