Why the Syrian Crisis is so Dangerous to World Peace.

Hague has all but made up his mind that the Syrian Sunni fundamentalist insurgents will be armed if he and the Foreign Office can claim it is in Britain's interests to do so. As only 80 MPs have expressed concern that it should be put to a Commons vote, it is clear Hague thinks it is merely a formality.

"We have a good record on going to the House of Commons for a vote. There would be a vote one way or another. I can't see any reason why it couldn't be before any such decision was implemented"

Note that Hague is not open to the possibility of the decision not being implemented. He insinuates there is no reason why it could not be voted for 'one way or another' but that could mean they can vote only after Hague has made the decision. Parliament then has to rubber stamp it.

The same hypocrisy is evident in Hague's high handed attitude towards peace negotiations. If it looks as though, with the fall of Qusair and the Syrian government gaining on the ground militarily, that the Geneva Conference will be continually pushed back because the outcome cannot be dictated.

This is essentially what Hague means when he states,

"It makes it less likely that the regime will make enough concessions in such negotiations, and it makes it harder to get the opposition to come to the negotiations,"

There have been numerous opportunities to open negotiation to try and bring about a ceasefire but Hague does not want them. The objective is, at any cost,  to get regime change no matter how many Syrian civilians die in the carnage. Any 'peace' conference is meant to be a means to that end.

As Peter Oborne has put it,

'Mr Cameron wants to escalate the fighting by arranging military support to the rebels. He told Parliament on Monday that he hopes this will “tip the balance” in their favour. Iran – in reality an essential part of any solution – will not be welcome at the negotiating table, and in Mr Cameron’s mind there is no future for Assad, which probably means that the war will drag on and on'.

Iran, of course, is not part of the solution because the aim of regime change in Syria is to rollback Iranian influence in the Middle East and to side with Saudi Arabia and Turkey, a NATO power, in removing Assad through using Sunni fundamentalist proxy forces.

The messianic drive to intervene in Syria is much about backing Saudi Arabia and protecting the oil supply, the 'balance of power' and, of course by extension, those lucrative arms deals worth billions of pounds to British Aerospace.

The pretence that it is about saving lives is pure propaganda as almost every humanitarian aid agency has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and negotiations for a transition of power to be arranged. Keeping the war going actually can benefit Saudi Arabia as domestic fanatics can be exported there.

The so-called 'rebel' militias often do not have much in common with one another. The Saudi sponsored proxies are Wahhabi militias and Turkey is backing militias of the sunni Muslim Brotherhood which Riyadh has an an aversion to because of tensions between in it and Wahhabi Islam

Meanwhile, as is the case with Afghanistan, rich Saudis have provided funds to Al Qaeda-affiliated groups and in Syria that means Jabhat Al-Nusra. If Salafi jihadists overthrow Assad's regime the prospect would be further bloodshed and the next target would be Jordan.

Hague's policy of being prepared to arm sunni militias as a counter to Hizbollah and Assad's forces is a repeat of the realpolitik decision to back the Afghan mujahadeen in the 1980s, one that had long term disastrous consequences in creating 'blowback' in the form of Al Qaida in the first place.

The magnitude of the crisis in Syria, and Hague's absurd foreign policy response to it, are outcomes of longer term failures to move towards greater energy independence and the dangers of being dependent upon a dysfunctional Saudi Arabian regime that has sponsored terrorism for years.

Yet the Syrian crisis is now bring events to a climactic head on clash of interests between Saudi Arabia and Iran as another catastrophic result of the Iraq War which created similar warfare on sectarian lines. The price of stability there was to tacitly allow Shia militias to crush Sunni insurgents and pursue ethnic cleansing.

That strategy led to an Iraq dominated by Maliki who looks favourably towards Tehran and willing to contemplate a new axis of power between Iran, Iraq and Syria. Along with potential lucrative pipeline deals to connect the South Pars gas field to the Mediterranean, a new lethal front in the New Great Game opened up.

The Syrian Conflict has created a potentially intractable crisis that could presage a region wide war. Saudi Arabia could face 'blowback' should Syria become like Afghanistan. The disruption to oil supplies would then compound global economic stagnation and lead to instability of the sort not seen since the 1930s.