In These New Times

Cailean Bochanan

2nd September, 2013

Leading warmongers are in a state of shock and burning with indignation at the decision of the leader of the world’s foremost democracy to consult his parliament .
Things are getting truly desperate with Kerry and the French announcing yet more evidence against Assad they’re not going to show us. The weight of secret evidence is becoming quite impressive.
Meantime, in Britain we have a rearguard action from despairing anti-Assad politicians claiming that we should have another vote since last Thursday’s vote was premature. That’s indisputable but they should ask themselves why the British parliament was recalled to vote on the principle of supporting a US led attack on Syria before Obama had decided that such an attack should go ahead. They even have support from Shadow Defence Secretary, Jim Murphy arguing that a revote is possible if “Al Qaeda were to get their hands on those chemical weapons”. Perhaps someone should explain to him that the whole argument of the war party is that Al Qaeda aren’t capable of using chemical weapons and that’s why Assad must have done it.  William Hague, the now discredited foreign secretary, claims that Milliband faces “international outrage” over his opposition to the government motion for war. It will be interesting to see if that “international outrage” extends beyond the coalition of the willing which so far definitely consists only of hmmm.. well, nobody in fact, not even the country which will likely soon lose the doubtful privilege of having Wiiliam Hague in charge of its foreign policy. According to the Telegraph, Cameron has accused Milliband of “letting down America”. How very unpatriotic of him! Actually most of America don’t support this war and even more crucially, and fatally for Cameron , nor does their Commander -in-Chief. Meanwhile French warmongers are complaining that Obama has dumped Hollande in it by failing to launch airstrikes as expected, by them at least, at the weekend, allowing an opposition to crystallise around the demand for a parliamentary vote on the attacks, one which Hollande would likely lose and, hence, will not be permitted.
Such are the travails of the war party and they can only get worse as Putin orchestrates things at the G20. The distinguished former diplomat M.K.Bhadrakumar talks of ” a major diplomatic initiative by the Kremlin, which comes virtually on the eve of the G20, to make a compelling bid for reason, discretion and restraint on the Syrian situation. Evidently, his hope is to work on Obama’s calculus and deflect the gravitas away from the military track, and, hopefully, toward resuscitating the Geneva 2 process. It is an ambitious bid, but if anyone can swing it today on the world stage, it is only Putin.”
The stage is set for further histrionics and tantrums from hawks who are so used to getting their own way that they cannot see that they are playing a losing game.