The Syria delusion

Things certainly seem to be coming to a head in Syria, with today’s news that Assad’s forces have launched a ground assault on Homs, forcing the rebels to withdraw, and that the UN Human Rights Council has passed a resolution condemning the brutality. John R. Bradley, writing for the Spectator last month, argued that this is not the ‘simple story of freedom fighters opposing tyranny’ that many believe it to be – that ‘the situation is clearly much more complex’. In this week’s magazine, out today, Rod Liddle further explores that complexity:

What proportion of the Syrian population is fully in support of the continued uprising against the country’s authoritarian leader, Bashar al-Assad? It is not a question I have heard addressed often — not by our journalists bravely reporting from beneath the Syrian army’s mortar attacks, nor indeed by those sitting at home writing for outraged liberal broadsheets, demanding we arm the rebels, or at least do something. Still less have I heard the issue addressed by the European Union and its odd new allies in this struggle — al-Qa’eda, Hamas and the notoriously democratic government of Saudi Arabia.

It is a complex question. News reports tend to focus on where the action is, where the atrocities are, where the good footage is, where there are outrageous stories to tell of violence and oppression, of blood and bandages and heroic doctors staunching raw cavernous wounds with curtain material. And so all we have seen on our screens these last few weeks have been appalling scenes of children dying and our own journalists being killed or maimed — and, naturally enough, our anger at the ghastly Assad is stoked up. He is plainly not, as was suggested at the time of his accession, a new voice of liberal decency and exquisite moderation in the Middle East, but apparently more of the same ol’ — a ruthless and bloody authoritarian.