The Reasonableness of Official Governments

There is nothing new under the stars and Brother Mars. Certainly there is not much new in the Middle East. In the sense that what occurs there has happened before, interminably, and is destined to continue happening, it seems, into eternity. If the Universe grants these creatures that inhabit Planet Earth that opportunity. On the other hand, if a higher power exists, that being whatever it may be, might just conceivably emit a last sigh of heavenly exasperation and simply eliminate an experiment gone quite, quite bad.

It wasn't all that long ago, when Syria invaded Lebanon in 1976 to 'protect it' from itself and from the Israeli invasion, inviting the Iranian Republican Guard to enter the country to help in whatever way it meant to do, and since it meant to do, it did. The Palestinian refugees who co-opted Lebanon from the Lebanese who surely did not deserve Lebanon for themselves, were forged into a Shia death squad -- by the pious teachings of the Iranian revolutionaries -- whose lethal focus took everyone but the Iranians by surprise.

Revolutionary Iran, newly confident in its Islamist designed mission to dominate the geography and from there reach out further afield, as Islam once originally did so successfully as a religion of divine conquest, consolidated its relationship with Syria, and both helped to form Hezbollah, their deadly non-state militia known as a terrorist group to countries where its forces have lethally struck, leaving a bloody trail of human entrails behind.

Lebanon's Cedar Revolution, where the International media, including CNN, reported a figure of 1.5 million persons demonstrating the end of the Syrian Occupation of Lebanon on March 14th 2005 in Beirut.

The point of all of this is who was their European benefactor, who eagerly supplied them with all the then-modern munitions and advanced technology needed to advance their ambitions. No surprise there, the Soviet Union. Russia is nothing if not loyal to those who are loyal to its own ambitions. Russia has a problem of its own with Islamist fanatics, mostly of the Sunni-Muslim inspiration. Their reasoning that supplying Shia-Muslim Islamic fanatics will serve to protect them against the Sunnis is mysterious.

Unless they're playing the long game, and knowing that the Sunni jihadists are amply funded, trained and supplied by the United States, however mistakenly taking them on occasion for allies, and most certainly armed, encouraged and funded by Saudi Arabia and the oil-wealthy Gulf States, plan for the future. In the hopes that eventually, in time's good grace, each of the feverishly-hateful, martyrdom-devoted sides in their everlasting war will manage to eliminate the other.

This is a matter of political, social, existential practicality for Russia. We have it from a Russian diplomat assigned to Ottawa. "We are standing for and defending international law; we never defended (Syrian President Bashar al-) Assad. Of course everybody has interests and we have interests but talking about this situation, we're not best friends of Assad. When he became president, his first official visits were to Western Europe. He visited Russia in, I think, his third year. We're not best friends at all", said Russian diplomat Alexander Elkin, first secretary and head of the political section of the Russian embassy in Ottawa.

Ambassador Georgiy Mamedov was busy, unable to be interviewed. Sending in his stead Mr. Elkin. Who assured his interlocutor that there was great cause for optimism after genial talks between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry came to an agreement where Syria has agreed to surrender its chemical weapons. For a very practical reason; avoiding threatened U.S. military action.

"We assume that it was quite a good step forward towards a peaceful resolution of the Syrian crisis", stated Mr. Elkin with confidence, the very morning a UN report found "clear and convincing evidence" chemical weapons were indeed used in Ghouta's Damascus suburbs. Inconveniently for Russia and Syria, the text of the report after analysis and investigation, that the attack was assuredly carried out by the Syrian regime, not the opposition as claimed by both Syria and Russia. Conveniently for Syria, Russia has surreptitiously shipped out more advanced conventional weapons to allow it to continue its business of citizen-destruction.

"But still, we are just in the beginning There's lots of work to do and not just (on behalf of) Russia and the United States. Other international partners need to be involved. At the United Nations Security Council this week, we expect a resolution on Syria to be adopted. Our permanent representatives are discussing the wording and text." Russia, the world should be well aware by now, and Mr. Elkin stressed, has been fighting for peace from day one.

There is a need to bring in members of the Syrian opposition, to have them sit at the table with the regime. He fears, however, that members of the opposition are not yet quite prepared to discuss a peaceful resolution with the regime. Whereas, on the other hand, al-Assad's people are, "without conditions." And, he pointed out, it should be noted that Russia has used its veto at the UN Security Council six times (!!!?? on this singular issue, presumably), whereas the U.S. has used its veto 11 times.

"For this moment, we can put away the military scenario because the consequences of that would be horrible for the entire region -- for Iran, the Middle East peace talks and even for North Korea. We don't want to say that if the security council isn't working, we need bombs and aggression. The U.S. and Canada cannot 'hide behind the ocean', because radicalization and homegrown terrorism exists in Canada as well."

"Al-Qaeda is dreaming of using chemical weapons and you won't get them at the negotiation table. At least Assad is keen to negotiate, he seems quite reasonable and we can deal with official governments", he concluded. Even 'official governments' whose institutionalized brutalization of its people, and mass slaughter of those considered to be of the wrong tribe, the wrong religious sect marking them out for annihilation by their very own government.

How superbly civilized.