By now the United States will probably already have made a decision at congress to move in and strike Syria. Whatever the result, it is one of the many painstaking decisions a leader must handle. In the United Kingdom parliament snubbed at David Cameron's plea to back the U.S. a few weeks ago. And at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, Vladimir Putin explained that the nations were 50/50 on the air strike decision on the civil war ravaging Syria. France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Canada are all backing the US while Russia, China, India, Â鶹ÊÓƵ Africa and Italy are condemning US airstrikes according to Putin. Now, doesn't this all sound only too familiar? Quite frankly it's a very scary scenario, ironically enough it was only two weeks ago in my happy birthday column to Peter Stursberg I wished I had some of his war zone experiences. Well, it seems like 1945 all over again, only this time, instead of a pint-sized enigmatic and eloquent politician leading the charge we have a slightly more complex situation.
Bashar al-Assad has denied using chemical weapons on his own people and he is firmly holding on to his seat as president of Syria. Colin Powell says Assad is a pathological liar but how much do really know. I was cognisant of the happenings in Syria but I was still suffering from first world problems such as complaining about Fifa 13's lack of solid gameplay. But I soon saw something that shook me out of my superficial state and forced me to pay closer attention to the Syria crisis.
Flipping through channels, I stopped on 30, CNN, and there it was a YouTube video of children in Syria having convulsive spasms. The report said they were victims of deadly sarin attacks, a chemical considered to be a weapon of mass destruction under the UN Resolution 687. Now what do we do, Assad has denied using chemical weapons but each day we see more and more reports that refute his claim. A lot of times, things in the world go beyond what you and I know but one thing's for sure something is going to be happening by the time you finish reading this column and I sure hope it doesn't involve Canada. With technology at its highest and testosterone levels among leaders growing, the outcome can be disastrous.
But how can we define the help the US is proposing, all we know is a strike which simply means sending in F14 Tomcats to target and bomb military sites and bases. In love and war there is sadly hardly any middle ground and somehow I wish there was. In world politics we are mere peasants and don't have the luxury of knowing the true story at risk of public dismay. But we can sure analyse what's going on, Syria and Iran are allies and that obviously spells bad news for the U.S. Now Russia has sided with the Muslim country and now we have an old school Mexican standoff. A standoff that I must say consists of some very hot tempered buckaroos whenever things of this nature arise. Obama is fresh off cutting military pay raises for 2014 and the public fears spending billions on another blood potentially sucking war. Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javed Zarif has said a strike on Syria by the U.S. would be illegal according to the United Nations charter. But whatever is happening in Syria needs to end. There are several ways we can look at it but we tend to arrive at one answer, or rather, a question and that is, what's the right thing to do?
While we in the west are deciding, more and more people are dying and belligerents are arming themselves and strategizing. It's already said that Iran is ready to attack if there is ever a strike on Syria. Plus it doesn't seem any more convincing when Putin and Obama weren't very conversational in St. Petersburg either. I'm just hoping this can come to an end quickly and amicably, tyrants and dictators often don't know the value of life. But it was Niccolo Maciavelli that explained it best in his book The Prince. "All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer."Let's see what ambitious mistakes will be made in the coming weeks.
