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'The fixation of Boris Johnson et al on Sunni Islamic extremism is blinding them to the far-greater Islamist menace facing Syria: the Shia Islamist extremism promoted by Iran.' Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
'The fixation of Boris Johnson et al on Sunni Islamic extremism is blinding them to the far-greater Islamist menace facing Syria: the Shia Islamist extremism promoted by Iran.' Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

The case for arming Syrian rebels

This article is more than 10 years old
Intervention would help create stability in the region – western inaction will hand victory to Assad and Shia Islamists

"I'd prefer Assad to win." Not his actual words, but that is the only conclusion to be derived from the suggestion of Boris Johnson, the London mayor, that arming the Syrian opposition would lead to British weapons in the hands of "al-Qaida-affiliated thugs". With 93,000 of Syria's citizens dead, a kill rate in the country higher than in post-invasion Iraq, and one of the world's most murderous and tyrannical regimes poised to win a historic victory thanks to western inaction, Johnson can only fret about hypothetical dangers.

In fact, it is the west's failure militarily to support the Syrian National Coalition and its principal military counterpart, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), that is strengthening the hand of al-Qaida in Syria. The SNC is formally committed to the establishment of a "democratic and pluralistic civil state" and is recognised by Britain, the US, the EU and the Arab League as legitimately representing the Syrian people. Yet demoralised by their shortage of arms, soldiers of the FSA have been defecting to the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra militia, which is, according to some sources, the best-equipped rebel force in Syria. The double-headed monster traditionally oppressing the Arab world – brutal dictatorships in power and opposition channelled into Islamist extremism and terrorism; the very combination that spawned al-Qaida and the 9/11 attacks in the first place – looks set to be resuscitated in Syria, as Johnson and other conservatives do their best to undermine western support for the only viable alternative.

Johnson suggests that instead of arming the resistance, the solution lies in a "total ceasefire". Similarly, Ed Miliband argues that "we all support the idea that we should focus on the peace conference and making the peace conference in Geneva happen … But the problem is the government has put its energy into the lifting of the arms embargo, not into the peace conference." Unfortunately, the Syrian Ba'athist regime and its allies have not shown a similar commitment to peace and negotiation: Iran is reportedly sending 4,000 of its Revolutionary Guards to help Assad crush the opposition; Russia recently announced it was supplying state-of-the-art anti-aircraft missiles to the Syrian regime; Hezbollah's military intervention was decisive in enabling Assad's recapture of Qusayr from the FSA and its allies. If Iran, Russia and Hezbollah feel free to intervene with arms and troops on the side of Assad while the west continues to tie the hands of the democratic resistance, the pursuit of "negotiations" and "ceasefires" will be merely the fig leaf behind which Assad completes his victory.

The crowning irony is that the fixation of Johnson et al on Sunni Islamic extremism is blinding them to the far-greater Islamist menace facing Syria: the Shia Islamist extremism promoted by Iran and embodied in its proxy, Hezbollah. The latter is an organisation whose military wing the UK and others designate as terrorist, and whose founding manifesto calls for "holy war" and "Islamic government". It was probably the perpetrator of a bomb attack in Bulgaria last year that killed five Israelis and one Bulgarian, though it denies any involvement. Hezbollah and Iran are promoting sectarian hatred against Sunnis in Syria while continuing to stoke their long-running confrontation with Israel. The consequences for regional peace and stability of a victory for Iran and Hezbollah are not something that Johnson and Miliband are apparently giving much thought.

The west's inaction in the face of the pending Ba'athist and Shia Islamist victory amounts to a colossal failure of leadership. It is all the more surprising, coming as it does after the successful 2011 intervention in Libya, in which western intervention saved the revolution against Gaddafi, without the loss of a single western soldier. In the subsequent free elections in Libya, the liberals defeated the Islamists, dramatically disproving the Cassandras' claims that intervention amounted to support for al-Qaida. Unlike the misguided 2003 adventure in Iraq, an intervention in Syria – in the form of arms supplies to the FSA and the imposition of a no-fly zone – would enjoy broad support both in Syria and the wider region, including from Turkey and the Arab League. In these circumstances, the ostrich-like stance of the anti-interventionists appears all the more bizarre.

More on this story

More on this story

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  • Putin dashes G8 hopes for Syria breakthrough

  • Syria crisis: Russia faces isolation at G8

  • Britain's Syrian community: how war is dividing families

  • Threat of sectarian war grows in Syria as jihadists get anti-aircraft missiles

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