Syria : Why Britain's Political Elites Want Military Intervention

There is much delusion in Britain over the reprieve from military intervention. The proposed missile strikes are a bad idea. However, that does not mean that they are merely 'stupid' or 'senseless'. Evidently, they are designed as part of a policy of showing Assad that he can never win in the civil war.

The aim of a missile strike is in continuity with the policy Washington and London have had since 2011 that 'Assad must go'. By a demonstration of strength, the US wants to make it plain that Assad will negotiate his exit at the postponed Geneva Conference and make way for the opposition.

The Syrian National Council is backed by the Friends of Syria group which meets in Doha and Istanbul and regularly receives Western diplomats. Turkey and Qatar are backing the opposition and want Assad to go with the support of the West due to its strategic partnerships with them and energy interests.

Britain's position is not merely about neoimperial hubris, 'saving Syria', the vanity of politicians wanting to strut on the world state though these are important. It is due to the fact that the enemies of Assad, especially Qatar, are vital partners in shoring up the continued prosperity of the Britain's rentier economy.

With the decline of North Sea Oil, Qatar has made up an increasing proportion of Britain's supply of LNG. Britain and France want 'energy diversification' and to depend less upon Russian gas for geopolitical reasons that are evident enough over Syria and also in wars such as Afghanistan.

Qatar proposed a gas pipeline to Turkey in 2009. Assad stands in the way of such a project as does Iran, the Gulf rival of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which wants to export gas to the Eastern Mediterranean via Iraq and Syria. This would be a major setback after Britain went to war to control Iraq's oil and gas.

Just as there was a complete cross political party consensus on the value of the Afghanistan War, so too is there on Syria. The Labour amendment to the defeated government motion, also rejected, was only about caution over rushing in to intervention when the case had not yet been clearly formulated.

The reason the British government's attempt to join the US in a missile strike on Syria was defeated in Parliament was not so much about public opinion. Nor did Cameron take the vote to Parliament because he was genuflecting to public opinion. He did it because he believed it would vote for him.

True, Miliband wanted to exploit the anti-interventionist mood after his 'lack of leadership' had been subject to criticism over the summer. Yet Labour was for military intervention and just not the way that Cameron had proceeded which seemed similar to Blair's demand to trust his 'call of judgement' on Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons

Already, there are strong voices calling for a second vote on military intervention on Syria now that Obama has played for time and delayed military action until Congress reconvenes .Members of the government are blaming Miliband for making military action no longer an option in case new 'compelling evidence' turns up.

The reasoning is that if Washington gets more regional support, as it already has with the Arab League now demanding action *and a legal pretext could be used for missile strikes, then the British government would be able to put another vote before Parliament in light of changed circumstances.

Boris Johnson in particular has been putting pressure on Cameron to do so. In the Daily Telegraph Johnson claimed  "If there is new and better evidence that inculpates Assad, I see no reason why the government should not lay a new motion before parliament, inviting British participation".

The Mayor of London has every reason to be forthright as he is close to the rich elites in Qatar and has been relentlessly banging the drum for it as a major investor in London. In fact, Britain has strong developed strong bilateral trade ties with Qatar in energy,education and 'culture'.

Unfortunately, Britain's dysfunctional rentier economy has become increasingly interconnected with Qatar's in the wake of the 2008 crash and the need for Qatari petrodollars to boost investment in British real estate (especially in London ) and lure shoppers to spend more.

Whether the British public likes it or not, Syria and its geopolitical position is very much about Britain's business, keeping gas bills down and giving shots of investment to prop up an ailing and failing neoliberal economy too overdependent upon oil and gas from unstable regions.


* Correction- The Arab League Secretary General has decided the UN route must be pursued and "military action is out of the question". Saudi Arabia wanted US military action.

'Saudi Arabia and the Syrian opposition pleaded with League members to back a US military strike on the regime.

 Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told the meeting that "opposition to international action only encourages the regime to pursue its crimes".

"It is time to ask the international community to assume its responsibilities and to take deterrent measures" against the Syrian regime," al-Faisal said.'

A Note on the UAE

Guardian journalist Irvine writes,

The UAE is recognised as a valued investor in the UK, with Boris Johnson recently referring to himself as the "mayor of the eighth emirate". After all, Dubai has invested in a £1.5bn new deepwater port at London Gateway, while up the river, the £36m Emirates Airline cable car carries Londoners across the Thames.

There is no more degrading spectacle than Britain prostrating itself before these corrupt rentier oil rich regimes in order to male London the capital of "capital capital". By the standards of other neighbouring regimes, the UAE is relatively liberal but Cameron's feeble mention of human rights is eyewash.

David Cameron led a delegation to the UAE to, among other things, persuade the Emiratis to purchase 60 British Typhoon aircraft. Human rights were to be discussed, the prime minister said. "On human rights, there are no no-go areas in this relationship."

As a PR guru, the idea of selling billions of pounds worth of military hardware to the UAE- while pretending that this comes under the condition of respecting human rights is as bogus-is exactly the sort of slippery jibberish to be expected from David Cameron.

Clearly there are "no no-go areas" as Cameron, more of crude businessman than a statesman or diplomatic is highly unlikelt to make conditions upon the UAE government over arbitrary detainment or torture when the arms deals are already signed and sealed and London is cravenly dependent upon capital.

Great Britain was one a net exporter of capital that actually did have benefits to both the recipient countries and the City of London. That was founded in tangent with Britain's manufacturing power and export markets. The sight of Britain crawling before such regimes is both demeaning and humiliating.

Those who warble on about what happens in Saudi Arabia or UAE or Qatar is "not our business" ignore the obvious fact it is "our business" because of the reciprocal business relationships that have developed since the 1980s: the British trade in arms and its geopolitical support in return for oil and investments.

The Decline of Metroland.

The green space here is one of the last remaining in what was once known as Middlesex, an ancient country that was destroyed as Greater London expanded from Ealing in the West outwards along the arterial A4 and north westwards along the Metropolitan Tube line.

It's hard now to believe that the south part of Harrow, glimpsed in the distance here, was once a desirable semi rural suburb that those fleeing inner city London wanted to move to. Harrow developed in the shadow of the hill upon which the public school and certain expensive independent shops exist as a self conscious and snobby reminder of a vanished England.

In fact, Harrow on the Hill has about as much connection to the reality of what surrounds it as a Harry Potter novel does to contemporary English life. Maybe one day it will develop gate houses at the foot of the hill with barriers and security if the dangerous sections of the teeming masses below target it in the next riots.

Whole swathes of Middlesex have lost their settled and sedate commuter aspect and appear as floodlight bricken wastelands. The semis with their tended gardens and silly ponds and gnomes have often gone as they become temporary work barracks for a globalised workforce in the shadow of Heathrow Airport.

Even the spire of the Church on Harrow on the Hill has a red light on it to warn low flying aircraft of its existence. From Old Redding, a high point from which Harrow and Highgate Hills can both be seen, by day the planes taking off from Heathrow like slow motion ballistic missiles one after another can be watched. More airport terminals are planned.

"The sisters Progress and Destruction dwell

Where rural Middlesex once cast her spell

Dear vanished county of such prosperous farms/

Where now are your weatherboarded charms."

John Betjeman wrote that in 1967. Even that world of contended suburban Metroland has mostly disappeared, a process accelerated in the 1990s and 2000s by London becoming an ever more deracinated "Global City". The idea that people, migrants from within Britain or elsewhere can 'make a home for themselves' here ignores the fact it no longer functions as one for those already living there.

Life has a feeling of transience and meaningless drift. It is hardly surprising that some alienated Muslims feel that if nations of Muslims must be, as they see it, are destroyed by the need of Western foreign policies designed to control their oil and that this is the 'civilisation' it has to offer, then it deserves to be destroyed in turn by them.

There is something sinister in the new architectures of warehouses and logistics depots surrounded with aluminium rail fencing, razor wire, and 24/7 security barriers and omnipresent CCTV cameras. The riots in August 2011 showed that social discipline is not internalised: only repression and surveillance can restrain outbreaks of mass pychopathology of the streets.

Metroland is dead, perhaps, due to two factors. Firstly, it's decline was hastened by the M25 and the Great car economy of Thatcher. This change in 1986 made it easier for those in Metroland to start to live in Motorway Towns. Secondly, in the 1990s the well to do Londoners could move back into the old inner city districts such as Islington if not beyond and around the M25.

The dislike of public transport probably played a part. It just became as obsolete as the "rus in urbe" concept. England consists of little more than sodium lit suburbs interconnected with numerous high speed motorway and dual carriage way links. The south east of England especially is now one large suburban sprawl.

With vastly inflated property prices in London, the economy of which was increasingly detached from the rest of England that was, however, still dependent upon it is role as a finance centre, many sold out and went off outside London, whether the Costa del Sol or the Motorway towns with quick airport

Then new people from all over the globe came in and either rented semis or bought them if they could. High Streets no longer had anything but bland retail chains such as Wenzels and Greggs selling trashy baked goods. Polish shops sprung up after 2005 when hundreds of thousands entered in order to work the London cash machine to their benefit.

Though large numbers of British Asians had took over the old suburban English ideas with success certain chunks Metroland . Few people look at one another or even say 'hello', crime is rampant, drugs are commonplace and there are tensions and enmities where there isn't just flat bored indifference.