What Syria means for Russia

At the peak of its vainglorious Cold War pomp, the USA reckoned to maintain forces sufficient to fight two major wars and one minor war - simultaneously.  Well, it was never put to the test.  But perhaps there's the measure of a true global superpower.  Putin, of course, fancies his Russia as a superpower ...

I wonder how he'd assess his standing the day after Damascus fell.  To describe this as humiliating for him is an understatement: if you can't see it, you obviously don't read much from the teeming world of fiercely patriotic Russian 'milblogs'.  He must own to an intelligence failure on a par with Israel's, pre October 2023; the loss of a client regime in under a fortnight; in material terms, the loss of his logistical springboard to Africa, where he aspires to a buccaneering, influential and lucrative interventionist positioning; and in political terms, the loss of prestige.

Ah, prestige.  Who uses that term these days?  In my earliest soldiering, I found myself briefly under the tuition of a Chief Instructor who'd fought in the closing 12 months of WW2 and in many a campaign through the '50s and 60's.   He told us that everything he'd done, all across the globe, was for the sake of upholding and extending British prestige.  If, today, we are too post-imperial to care about such things well, across most of the world and most definitely including Russia, prestige matters immensely.

Putin and his Russia just aren't up to it.  How much does he look forward to his next meeting with Xi?  With Kim?  With Erdogan?  The man who can't prosecute a mid-sized war in his own back yard, nor prop up a single strategically vital client on whose territory he maintains sizeable naval, army and air assets.  The man who, for all his much vaunted experience of decades and supposed statecraft, even now doesn't realise that the enemy gets a vote?  Even after Ukraine indeed turned out, as predicted, to be Finland rather than Georgia. 

See, Volodya, superpowers need to be cognisant of how, when they extend themselves in foreign lands, it's necessary to do a great deal more than plonk down some forces, kick a little ass, and then assume everything's bought and paid for.  Check out Rome in its prime, Britain, the USA - and note just what an all-enveloping, wrap-around approach needs to be taken to hold what you think you've got.   How many snipers and opportunistic hit-and-runners you need to be prepared for.  What all those other carping, jealous powers can do, with so little effort and just a little hostile intent, to incommode you and your positions on your faraway clients' turf.  How (in the military idiom) if you want to hold the line at a river, you must hold both banks.  Oh, how much all-round capability it all requires!  Capability you just don't have.

If you ask me, this humiliation will result in Putin lashing out, and bodes worse for Ukraine than anything else so far.  Which other cat can he kick?  But even there ... the enemy has a vote.

ND

Not a great look for Germany or its politics

The Telegraph have an excellent story out today on the Gazprom-Germany-EU shenanigans. It is well worth reading and here is a link to the full story on a non-paywall site.


I won't rehearse the whole article because it is very clear. The Germans have been happy to stiff Eastern Europe in complicity with the EU. Now that the whole story is out (which must be some miracle for the EU and I feel for the team who pressed publish on this), the EU are going to have to bury it or else end up with 30% income sanctions on Gazprom and State Aid charges against Germany.


The piece to add to it is some people context.


For a long time Germany has been well in with Gazprom. This has been arranged by Gerhard Schroder, the ex-Chancellor, who has long been in Putin's arc and is indeed now Chairman of Rosneft (replacing Putin late last year, natch). The picture here is from 2005, working closely with all the worst of the Putin Gang.


He is indeed a founder member really and today is in the inner cabal, always defending Putin. Angela Merkel has called him out once, saying she does not approve of what he is doing. But the reality is that he has done these sweetheart deals for Germany who look to have gladly lapped them up. Of course, readers here will know of the crazy "EnergieWende" policies in Germany which have left the Country desperate for Russian (low-carbon) gas.


As much as there is loathing in the UK for Tony Blair, he has not actually represented state actors that have hostile intentions. Yes he joined a few Bank boards - but even here Schroder has managed to be an Managing Director of Rothschilds to match. It is quite incredible really what has happened politically.


Of course, there are real world impacts in addition to the economic splintering of the EU that this has been creating, see just today where Germany refuse to join with US/France/UK in considering what action to take against Syria and their Russian supporters. Whilst there are plenty of solid reasons to avoid getting involved in Syria, the German-Russian gas relationship will always now allow for a lack of credibility to German political positions when we know how compromised they are with their Russian engagements.

Russians laughing at the West - and rightly so

.@BorisJohnson tries to pass G7,EU/NATO &regional allies for intern. com/ty.That collective opinion beats individual one is pure bolshevism pic.twitter.com/MBnP5YN263

— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) April 11, 2017

President Putin met with Italian President Sergio Mattarella, who has come to Russia on an official visit.https://t.co/yasNjjSrFl pic.twitter.com/Qvf2TGLSVD

— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) April 11, 2017

Two dilettanti botched it even before coming under Russian diplomacy`s
broadside. Who failed whom? pic.twitter.com/Equ1G4HumM

— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) April 11, 2017

Really, how stupid does the West' diplomacy look. I can't remember a time when collectively the Western powers looked so inept. As we know, we are incapable of even securing the borders and oceans around Europe, let alone dealing with a manipulative and highly intelligent power such as Russia.


The Chinese, risk averse in international relations, must be aghast at the collapse of both Western Unity and the total lack of strategic nous on display by both US and Europe.


Surely, in a Reagan/Thatcher world the answers are simple:


1) Agree to let Assad survive on a promise of the destruction of ISIS and end to use of chemical weapons. Agreement with Turkey to continue the block on passage of migrants from Syria and Iraq.


2) Agree to lift sanctions on Russia re Crimea in return for a settling of the border disputes in Ukraine and agreement from both sides to position Ukraine as a neutral power not to be invited into EU/NATO.


3) UN Resolutions to take UN mandate to 'support' Libya, allowing the crushing of ISIS there and an end to the criminal migrant gangs, plus potentially more stability for the Government going forward.


4) (As is happening) A China/US agreement on North Korea to try to stop the mad boy-king enacting his weird fantasies.


5) Global resolutions from the UN against Al-Qaeda and ISIS (and the Uighurs etc to get China on board) to allow for more rapid intervention as ISIS vacates the Middle East for North Africa and the Sahel.


Instead, we are basically doing the opposite of the above, side-lining Russia who are prepared to do the dirty work for us. Doing nothing really with China and ignoring the ISIS issue in Libya, Iraq and Syria.

... But Channel 4 News is Generally Crap

Item:  Channel 4 News at 7 o'clock on Monday.  That's Channel 4, the station, "owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation, a public corporation of the Department for Culture, Media & Sport".  (How we love Jon Snow.)  Tonight, an item on Syria - and this is 'news' reporting - ends thus:

"Back in Khan Sheikhoun, they've been burying the dead from last week's chemical weapon strike.  To them, a peace process, a political solution, probably seems as far off in the future as Syria's past in the Roman Empire, when the Emperor Trajan held the fate of the country in his hands."

Yeah, right.  In amongst all the stuff raining down on them.  Analogies with the Emperor Trajan.  In Khan Sheikhoun, that's exactly how they are thinking.  Probably.

ND

Syria flip-flop

Nil points fro President Trump.


It is all very well wringing your hands and deciding now that you are President you can fire of a missile salvo....but to what end?


We can only hope in a limited sense that this is supposed to make Assad think again before he uses chemical weapons. The issue is that Assad was using chemical weapons on Al-Qaeda (Al-Nursa)controlled areas. Sadly for the civilians in Syria, nowhere is safe and each side happily uses hostages in this sick and brutal civil war.


Obama, made empty threats so I guess some might see Trump as at least improving on his predecessors utter uselessness when it came to foreign policy. However, realpolitik thinking would suggest the best thing in Syria is for the war to end, this means one side must win. Both sides are the bad guys hence the confusion in diplomatic circles about what to do.


At least the last strategy, of letting Russia fight the war with Assad could have led to a conclusion of sorts. Now, if Assad is to be held back by US Airpower, then the prospect to and end to the war and slaughter is further away.


There are no easy answers in a terrible situation that has been allowed to develop - a few missiles fired I doubt is going to be the answer.


Perhaps instead this is meant to impress the Chinese on the seriousness of the threat Trump has made re North Korea?

Putin and Assad are on our side, says new UKIP leader Nuttall

So goes and article in The Times.


So this is true, is it not?


The Middle East is complicated beyond belief. However, the West has been backing so-called moderate groups in Syria, most of which  have turned out to be terrorist groups.


The US has been bombing mainly ISIS, which is also what Assad has been doing. So have Hezbollah and Iran and Iraq - a coalition of the awkward!


Wow, this is some mess, the main backers of ISIS are Saudi, Turkey and the Gulf States, however they have backed off in recent months.


It is a complete shower of a situation, in Aleppo people are being both bombed by the Government and also held hostage as human shields by terrorists - what a terrible place to be in all respects.


Putin of course has his own ends in mind, mainly to get a Syrian base and keep some Middle East influence, he is hardly in it for a greater good in which he does not believe.


Assad is a murderous bastard too who was the original cause of this by allowing his people to starve despite Syria having more than enough resources to enable a functioning state.


Given where we are though, the quicker ISIS is destroyed and peace returned to Syria and Northern Iraq, the quicker the deaths will end.


There re no good guys to back in this awful situation.

So what next now the dogs of war are slipped?

So whilst I was in the far East last week, quite a big fuss was made on the news agenda there about this debate that was happening in the UK about bombing Syria.

Firstly, I had hoped to avoid this debate, so it was a bit disappointing to still be assailed with it.

Then the debate, as ever, meant nothing. There is no plan to get rid of ISIS, there semms little mention of unhelpful facts that the Russians keep bringing up like the role of Turkey and then the peaceniks just say war is bad as if that is all that needs to be said.

Anyway, there was a vote and now we are bombing tiny bits of Syria as well as tiny bits of Iraq. Already the blowback has started, with stabbings in London and now in Abingdon today 'triggered' by our involvement.

Where was the real debate about WTF to do about radical Islam in our own country? This surely is the real pressing security need. Wiping out ISIS will be fun and is no doubt nescesary, but it is not the top level defence of the realm requirement.

Indeed, given attacking Syria will likely increase domestic terror attacks (it has already) then surely the most important thing to do is investment and working towards curbing these. Then thinking about the partial source and inspiration - preferably after long chats with friend and foe to find an actual workable strategy.

At the moment, Syria looks a lot like Libya on steroids, in fact had Gaddafi survived he would be a Assad clone for how the West viewed him. Libya did not work out so well, so how will Syria.

Finally, more to the point. How stupid are our politicians? Having the wrong debate about the wrong issues and turning it into a big deal?

Morally indefensible not to bomb Syria

Michael Fallon, my local MP, has said this in Parliament yesterday. Apparently so sick is ISIS that is if morally indefensible not to bomb them.

But what about Assad, him too apparently though less is mentioned these days.

The thing is, the US and now Russia and the UAE have been bombing ISIS for a while and yet their boundaries of control remain the same; perhaps at least we can say they are not expanding geographically.

The potential bombing of a Russian airliner this week shows though that the psychology runs deep and ISIS tentacles now spread across much of the muslim world. Even with ISIS wiped out in Raqqa, I can see a decades long struggle ahead as people flock the the idea of a death cult.

So bombing alone is not working and indeed overall will not work. But surely if the case is morally clear, then a UN mandate could be agreed on for the whole world to agree to intervene.

The UN has its chocolate teapot credentials well established, but even this entity managed to agree to the first gulf war. If ISIS needs to be destroyed and Syria stabilised and all of Russia, US, UK, China, Turkey, Saudi, (Even Iran!!) etc agree then surely a global compact could be reached.

Indeed, for the longer war, a global compact is exactly what it needed, to show even the disparate nations of the world with their differing aims and agendas can agree on challenging pure evil when it appears.

But as to Britain further getting involved in the current mess, I see no purpose at all. Our airpower will make no difference, there are no boots on the ground, the strategy is a mess with enemies fighting each other and by proxy.

There may be a moral case, but there is no realistic real world case that would make a jot of difference with hard power. Soft power is still the answer for now.

Themes for a Grey Monday Morning

Damp and grey in London here today, and the news is varied: sublime, ridiculous ... and probably quite significant.  In reverse order:

Ukraine

Did anyone notice a massive event on Friday?  Putin, Merkel and Hollande convened in Paris, complete with dragoons in shiny armour, to solve Ukraine ...  except that there was no communique afterwards - search the web as you will.  That, friends, is not a trivial matter.

We are left to speculate.  Did they make so much progress that they are minded to keep schtumm and keep at it?  Did Putin come in waving his Syrian-bombing willy in the expectation M + H would immediately remove sanctions?  Prior to the meeting, the WSJ quoted Merkel thus:  “We don’t associate the question of Syria with Minsk, these questions are not linked.”  She was obviously asked about it afterwards but the French press seem to think the issue was marginal at the meeting.  What about Ukraine then, eh?  Putin must be so hoping to have sanctions lifted.

Green Grauniad

Flushed with the success of its campaign for divestment of fossil fuel stocks, the Grauniad is launching Phase II of its mighty climate-change campaign!  Keeps them occupied, I suppose.  Come December, we shall all be occupied - perhaps physically - by climate protestors, with yet another Hollande vanity-extravaganza in Paris to come in Nov-Dec, of course.  And there really will be a communique after that one! - however empty and *disappointing* it may be (and it will).  Both Hollande and Obama want it to be their legacies, Heaven help us.  Must write about that soon.

Pesto to leave Beeb!

We all remember Pesto's dominance of the airwaves and BBC website back in '08-09, when the banking crisis was in full swing.  Then, somehow, everything started to go a bit flat, and it was unkindly rumoured his scoops had dried up because a Prominent Treasury Figure was no longer briefing him in real-time.   (Here at C@W we could calibrate this: in 2008, a link from the Pesto blog was worth a massive number of hits, even more than Guido or Worstall.   Couple of years later and the effect of a Pesto-link couldn't even be detected.)

Still: Peston on the ITV ... didn't work for Morecambe & Wise, did it?

ND
  

Parliament to vote for war against Eurasia

It does not seem very popular today to be against the UK getting involved in Iraq and Syria, but then again, MP's and the media like to have short memories.

There is no strategy whatsoever for the intervention. The RAF are going to bomb a few trucks and kill some terrorists. That is the good bit, the more of them that are dead the better given their unhinged barbarity they wish to inflict on everyone else in the world.

But with no troops on the ground, no rapprochement with Assad, no chance of Kurdish or Iraqi forces really being capable of offensive duties, what will this achieve? I have not even mentioned the Free Syrian Army, for good reason too, it is worthless and struggles to hold any territory inside of Syria.

Plus we have Libya - this sad country does not make the news now, the world having moved on. But Libya has not moved on, it has moved backwards, by about 100 years. Split by rival militias with either General warlords or lunatic religious terrorists. Libya was once a prosperous country, a small population and plentiful resources of oil and gas. A nice Mediterranean climate to boot.

What did Western intervention achieve in Libya in the long-term. Gaddafi is gone and replaced by a worse situation, much like Iraq. Extremism has a new fertile territory.

There was no plan in Libya and there is no plan for Syria. Iraq perhaps could be returned to its whole but this is unlikely as the schism in the Muslim world between Shia and Sunni is akin the the reformation in Europe. This will not be settled over a few years but many decades.

When the UK voted to not go into Syria last year, people now say this made it worse and allowed IS to flourish. This is a simplistic approach to what happened. IS grew from funding from Qatar and Saudi Arabia who now at last seem to be realising the need to kill the monster they have created. IS grew because Shia Iraqi government lost support in Northern Iraq. The governance of Iraq needs attention, which it is now getting.

The problem of IS is not a creature of the West. The crazy terrorists use Western hostages and threaten the West for purposes of extortion and to gain more enlistees. We would do better to ignore them and encourage the regional powers to annihilate them. Bombing randomly from afar will do little or nothing to improve the situation and only goes to further enhance copycat terrorism around the world in the Phillipines etc.

Instead a vote is for a permanent war against radical Middle East factions, one that is stateless and probably impossible to win through military means. We have tried for nearly 20 years and still the war goes on. It is hauntingly similar to Orwell's Eurasia war of 1984.

Oil and Troubled Geo-Political Waters

Iran, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Saudi, Syria - and back to Iran again

Up and Down

Initial reporting of the Iranian nuclear deal had it that the price of oil had dropped $2 on the news.  It wasn't true and in fact the price of Brent went up, slightly.  Brent has been range-bound, $100 - 120, for a long time now.  Not a tight range, but not headline-setting any more.

Russia, we gather, was one of the major players behind the Iran deal, and they certainly have no interest in a materially softer price of oil.  This DTel piece paints a pretty grim picture, and repeats the received wisdom that Russia needs an oil price of $110 to balance its budget (others have quoted a higher figure).  They remain uncomfortably stuck as a raw materials economy, despite their fervent longings to be a manufacturer: I've recorded here before that they have tried several times to sell gas and oil into the far eastern markets in packages with manufactured goods, 50:50 by value.  You can imagine where the Chinese have told them to stuff their useless trucks; and I read with amusement a couple of weeks ago that their new LNG export deal with South Korea works the other way around.  In this package, the Koreans will build the LNG ships for the Russians.  This is the sort of reality that has Putin tearing at what little hair he has.

But it's not all bad news for Russia.  They must relish the leading role they've taken with Syria and Iran (it's their back door, after all) - and what about the Ukraine !?  Their pulling out of EU accession negotiations must send the expansionist tendency in Brussels ranting up and down their luxurious corridors.  (I could wish the estimable Hatfield Girl was blogging just now; she writes interestingly on these matters.)  When will Turkey decide it's not worth the effort ?  That really would be a turning-point.

Who else is seriously long oil ?  Why, the Saudis, of course, who at the same time are none too chuffed about the Iran deal.  One particularly daft comment suggests that "Riyadh may try to 'rap America’s knuckles' by flooding markets with enough oil to puncture the US shale oil revolution. Production costs at the US Bakken shale field are around $80".  Yes, the USA is long oil as well: but I have a feeling that 'something' would happen long before the price fell that far.  There has long been the theoretical potential for a genuinely significant oil-price reversal: it is the truly epic quantities of oil reserves everyone knows are present in Iraq.  But somehow it never gets developed ...   

One also reads that the Iran deal is bad, bad news for the Syrian 'opposition'.  Assad-supporters Russia and the Iranians are now riding high and surely command at least several months of goodwill in the West  - so woe unto the enemies of Assad ?  Well maybe: but the perennial enemies of Iran are not appeased.

Sometimes, big-power diplomacy really does put the lid on a boiling pot. Remember North Korea ?  Ah yes, that's right, a few months ago they were threatening a first strike on Seoul and Seattle. It was headlines on every news channel for days and days.  And then suddenly ... nothing.  Oh, to have been a fly on the wall when the Chinese took Fat Boy to one side and read his fortune for him.

However.  When it comes to Iran, those perennial enemies probably have the means to keep the pot boiling for a while yet to come.  Price of oil on 31 December this year ?  Predictions in the comments, please.

ND

From The Abyss

Seems that the famous Reading Gaol is to be closed, which cannot but turn one's thoughts to Oscar Wilde.  With Mr Q's post also in mind and gas in the air, my apologies to Mr W:

I never saw a man who looked 
With such a wistful eye 
Out of the ‘spital tent of blue 
And upwards to the sky 
At every glinting plane that went 
With trails of silver by 

The vilest deeds like poison weeds 
Bloom well in Syrian air 
And Sarin gas strikes man and child 
And innocent woman there. 
All men oppose the Sarin gas 
All men pretend to care 

I know not if Assad’s the worst 
That could these folk befall; 
All that we know who watch from far 
Is, if the West stood tall 
And acted as its words require 
Assad would surely fall 

And this I know, that every hour 
The West stands idly by 
And wrings its hands, and stays its power, 
And waits for “Certainty” 
Then tyrants all will nod and wink 
And innocents will die 

And they of the swollen purple throats 
And the burning lungs and eyes 
Wait for the bolts of Shock and Awe 
That come down from the skies 
When statesmen stir themselves to show 
Their sayings are not lies 

In Westminster in London town 
There is a House of shame 
And in it lies the honour that 
Could once boast of the name. 
A fratricide’s base stratagem 
Has doused the flickering flame 

“All men oppose the Sarin gas!” 
By all let this be heard 
Some do it with their fingers crossed 
Some with a sophist’s word 
The coward with appeasing vote 
The brave man with a sword! 

ND

Gassed

 'Gassed' by  John Singer Sargent

So the G20 has agreed to disagree on Syria. Russia and China are in the definitely no military action camp. America and France are in the limited punishment by missile means. The UK is out of it. Which is good news for us. The last thing the country needs is involvement in another expensive conflict with a nation that we have no strategic interest in. Led by the USA who is out of step with the UN and the Church, and a lot of their own citizens. Where the charge of a war against Islam can be laid at our door and so only increasing our own risk of revenge terror attacks. And all in exchange for involvement in a foreign civil war in which we secretly hope both sides lose. So we are better off out.

However, in fairness to David Cameron and president Obama, their principles are quite correct. The use of chemical weapons is a breach of the Geneva protocol of 1925.

...prohibits the use of "asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices" and "bacteriological methods of warfare"...

The treaty needs to be seen for what its intention was. Its not just some old 100 year old ancient irrelevent piece of hippy thinking.

1925 was only 7 years after the bloodiest conflict in human history had ended. WW1 casualties are difficult to estimate but it seems that by the end of 1918 the planet was coming up some 15 million human beings short of its 1914 total. 
And then immediately followed the Spanish flu that killed another 20-40 million people. There had never been so much death and suffering. 

The Geneva protocol was an attempt to restrict the use of a deadly weapon. Pacifism had broken out throughout the world. Countries wanted an end to nation warring. Peace was the ideal of the day . And banning chemical weapons would be a major step to achieving that. 

Recently people opposed to conflict in aid of  Syria "so they can shoot 1,000 civilians a day but not gas them, then?" ..Well...yes. Exactly that. The Geneva protocol was a first step in global arms reduction. More would have followed. However the depression and the subsequent fall of capitalism and rise of socialism and fascism put paid to peace.

But the chemical  biological was the most important step. It was the nuclear non-proliferation treaty of its day. The bombing of civilians in WW1, by Zeppelin and bomber, had shown how vulnerable to attack a nation's homeland could be. The advent of the true bomber aircraft in 1918 had made all nations aware of a new air threat. The Vickers Vimy that entered service with the RAF in 1919 could carry 2500lb of bombs. An impressive amount for its day.The Heinkel 111 that came 15 years later only managed 4000lb. And the Vimy was famously used by Alcock and Brown to make the first ever non stop crossing of the Atlantic. 
Military theorists were predicting fleets of bombers {770 Vimy had been ordered in 1917-none arrived in time for war} flying unopposed over cities dropping high explosives and canisters of mustard gas or Spanish flu or worse and killing not hundreds but hundreds of thousands in each attack.
 It was a real live horror on a par with nuclear war in the 1960s.  But in many ways it was a worse spectre. There is nothing difficult about making chlorine gas. Any marginally technically proficient industrial nation could do it. And there was nothing very technical about aircraft. Of ships and submarines and tanks and heavy guns ..the aircraft of that era were the easiest to produce. No heavy equipment or specialist engineering or metallurgical knowledge required. 
So there was a very real possibility of even a peasant nation like 1920's Spain effectively acquiring gas/bombs and planes and having the modern equivalent of an independent nuclear capability.
Something that all nations recognised in the inter-war years and that, coupled with the genuine horrors of gas attacks on the western front in world war one made the world ready to sign up to reject these vile weapons.
The devastation caused and the relative ease of use and difficulty to resist is what caused the deliberate use of chemical attacks by military means to be absent from world war two, despite the fear they would be which was behind much of the appeasement that allowed that conflict to get out of hand in the first place.

Every civilian and military man woman and child in Germany, France and the UK was issued with a gas mask. Babies had incubator gas suits. Initially everyone carried their gas masks, fearful of the bomber getting through.
Even on D-day all the pictures show troops wading ashore loaded down with extra equipment, and all still carry gas masks. In fact the USA was so concerned about a beachhead gas attack theyissued a special anti-gas coated uniform that only caused a large number of their soldiers to become violently sick.

This picture is of a drill in 1941 when the bombers were still flying over UK cities. All sides still feared a mass chemical/biological attack that would kill tens of thousands and potentially knock a country out of a war. By 1941 few civilians actually did carry a gas mask.

There have even been attempts to strengthen the original protocol over the years. To make use by any nation a cause for all the other signatories to automatically be at war with the aggressor.

So any transgressor should be punished. Obama and Cameron are right on that. Chemical warfare is a terrible genie to allow out of the gas bottle.

A multipolar world and no role for the UN

You know the world has really changed when America can't get its allies on board for a foreign adventure. Worse still the Russians, driven solely by realpolitik, can deliver China, Brazil, South Africa and India onto their team. The US get France and Canada.

Following David Cameron, who he pushed into acting too fast, Obama might even lose his own Congressional vote. Pity the people of Syria, left to die in a war between a mad dictator and Al-Qaeda jihadists. One would have thought in this new world, with a declining superpower and more evenly distributed wealth than ever before (well, since we all had equal access to caves anyway), that the UN would grow in stature and be used as the grand global bargaining institution it was meant to be. Sadly not a bit of it. Instead, like the League of Nations before it, its impotency is fully exposed by the weakness of the need for unity. The US vetoes anything attacking Israel, now Russia and China defend Syria come what may. A total impasse is reached and the G20 is used instead for politicking.

The UN does many good things, but the political element is a failure, we should stop funding it and use the money more productively than paying diplomats to sit in New York and shout at one another. We have our own parliament for that. We have the G20 that is by far a more rational forum in that it consists of the wealthiest countries and the only ones with any ability to use hard power beyond their borders.

Fukishima crisis far, far more important than Syria

As much as national pride and journalistic obsession with the Westminster village have promoted Syria sotries to the exclusion of all else, there is another far more important story. Sad as it is to say that mass murder and genocide in Syria is not top of the agenda, this is only becuase of a far more worrying situation in Japan. I started reading and watching more about Fukusima during my travels this summer and have become increasingly concerend by the events now taking place.

For those not up to speed, very little has been done since the 2011 earthquake and multiple meltdown. At least 2 of the 3 cores suffered total meltdown and a storage unit for spent fuel rods and plutonium used for nuclear weapons making remains in a critical condidtion. The Japanese government has done little to help and has left everything to Tepco to sort out until some announcements last week. The wider world, including Russia who have their Chernobyl experience, have been ignored and not called to the site. To try and cool the plant millions of gallons of water have been pumped in and used in a recycling system, this has resulted in the site being full of hastily made water tanks, now containing millions of gallons of highly contaminated water. This is the source of many of the leaks which you may have read about in recent weeks.

What they do not say is there is NO long-term plan for this water, which will be poisonous for eons, except to eventually drop it into the Pacific Ocean. Not only that, but in the case of another earthquake, this jerry-rigged mess will be unable to withstand any major incident, irradiating the whole area and making the rest of the site untreatable. In a good scenario, the leaks are contained and a slow rate of release established that will be diluted enough in the pacific to make only small long-term damage.

But then the next step is trying to remove the fuel rods from Unit 4. This is a highly technical piece of work that has to be done under the most exacting standards. Any break of a rod, and there could be a re-start of the chain reaction and a huge release of radiation, far more toxic than anything yet seen. Due to the damage at the site and difficult working conditions, it will be a miracle (built on the back of superhero men and women working on the project)to avoid this and prevent yet more massive pollution. Even if the cooling water can be maintained to stop chain reactions, the water will become ever more irradiated, creating more problems for the future.

Finally, where are the molten cores? Nobody knows what has happened to the molten cores since the explosion. Whilst wild claims of china syndrome feel extreme it is hard to know in a situation never faced before. Will the cores melt into the earth polluting groundwater with unimaginable levels of radiation for eons? Will they cool on touch water and just release streams of irradiated steam for a few years? Will somehow they solidify? Unlike Chernoblyl the cores are made of MOX fuel, far more dangerous and unstable than those of the Russian disaster which was contained fairly rapidly. There is no insight into where the cores are or there state. In the best case, Fukushima will poison Northern Japan and the Pacific, maybe even the northern hemisphere for decades until containment. In the very worst case, the situation can deteriorate to a situation that could irradiate much of the world and lead to huge cancers throughout all life.

Yet we obsesses with Syria and allow the Japanese Government and media to lead us astray as to the events at Fukushima. hopefully, with the resources of the world focused on the site and massive investment, the best outcome can be achieved. At the moment this seems very unlikely.

Syrian misadventure is not about resources

Whenever it comes to war in the Middle East, which sadly has been the case fro many years now, indeed all of my adult life, the main accusation that comes from the left-wing is that the US and UK are only in it for the money.

Somehow some unsubstantiated claim is made that it is all about oil and security of energy prices that makes the West take actions to target and murder women and children. I have never taken this theory very seriously as no evidence is ever truly thrown up in its defence. Perhaps the one time it could have been true in 1991 and the First Gulf War, which did see prices drop, was the one time the whole international community was in harmony about the reasons and justification for the war!

Nevertheless, in Parliament today or tomorrow the likes of Diane Abbott will stand up and say this is all about oil or gas. Syria produced a mere 385,000 barrels of oil a day - it is hardly a blip on the middle eastern radar of oil producing countries; Iraq is trying to increase production by more than this each year. gas fields of 9 TCF are proven but not yet exploited. Again 9TCF is not tiny, but hardly competes with American shale gas. And this is the point, America may soon become a net energy exporter, the proposition that it would go to war with Syria to secure oil and gas supplies therefore moves beyond even the fanciful to the downright deranged. The USA and the UK could lose more by antagonising Russia and its supplies that it could ever gain in Syria. So let's hope in the debate to come that this hoary old chestnut is not raised.

Finally, don't read the above as a blessing for intervention, in a nasty civil war which is symptomatic of a wider Islamic civil war between Sunni/Shia and Wahhabi/Moderate visions of society I doubt we can make any difference. I would also wait until there is real proof Asad did this as the suspicion must be it was the rebels who have far more to lose and have admitted using chemical weapons in the recent past. I don't see at the moment what we hope to achieve by intervention.

Syria and the new Afghanistan

 

It's it difficult to believe the myopic view of UK politicians. After a quite disastrous foray into Iraq which ended with the UK being chased out of Basra and shia militia's taking over and a soon to be followed similar example in Helmand and Afghanistan.

Years of on the ground work and an initial invasion have yielded no real strategic success. In Iraq there is at least a vestige of democracy and maybe once Kurdistan separates the Country can begin to focus and move forward. It is an improvement on Saddam but with a very high blood price.

In Afghanistan the Taliban look poised to re-take the Country in next few years. The blood and treasure expended will be for nothing.

Now we have Syria, with a terrible civil war stretching into its 3rd years with the Country bitterly divided. Most of the Arab world supports the rebels and with Iran and Hezbollah, as well as Russia on the other side. Qatar and other arab states have provided plenty of arms to the rebels.

Why on earth should the UK get involved? We have not real way to end the war and no appetite for a ground war. Even the air campaign in Libya which seemed so successful has left a bitter country to be ruled by various militia's of one kind or another.

We all bemoan defence cuts, but at a time when our defence spending is falling and our ability to effectively use hard power can be questioned with the Islamic region in the Middle East, why on earth are our ministers and leaders so keen to gets us involved. I have no answer, it is bewildering to me for people who should know better and have expended enough of our soldiers lives in recent times to learn all the answers they need for this question.