I wonder how history will treat the actors strutting the Brexit stage? I hope Theresa May comes out with credit. By the time the history books are written she may, in any case, be Duchess of Berkshire, KG, etc.
I am reading a piece by Kamal Alam in Asian Affairs, Journal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs. He is an adviser on Syrian affairs to General, Lord Richards and teaches Syrian military history to military colleges in the UK and the Middle East. He looks back to the Arab Spring of 2011 and US and UK policy on Syria. “Barack Obama and David Cameron made up their mind that Assad had to go” he writes. They threw their weight behind Turkey and the freedom fighters/rebels trying to overthrow Assad and his one-party state. In 2015 Cameron tried unsuccessfully to get Parliament’s approval to bomb Syria. Fast forward to 2019 and Assad has all but won the war with only small pockets of resistance remaining.
Why did Team US/UK get it so wrong and how did Assad win what seemed an impossible struggle for his regime? Alam has the answers and, I suspect, knew them at the time. He is generous in his praise for David Lesch, Patrick Seale, Jonathan Steele and Peter Osborne all of whom saw Syria with greater clarity than Presidential and Prime Ministerial advisers. To digress, Patrick Seale spoke at least four years ago to members of the RSAA after an agreeable dinner and, as far as I can remember, was pretty much on the money predicting Assad’s ultimate survival and the failed US/UK policy in the region.
We might as well get one thing clear – Bashar al Assad and his father, Hafez, have rather more often than one might wish done completely unacceptable things to their citizens to maintain their dictatorships; a one-party state is a dictatorship. What was clear to me when I went to Syria at Easter in 2001 was how safe the country was, how a diverse range of Christian sects were tolerated, how good the medical service was (my companion needed treatment for a minor injury) and that is was advisable to toe the line vis-à-vis Assad’s regime. One thing, at least, I got wrong. I thought the Syrian army was run by Assad’s Alawite tribe. In fact the army is not sectarian, is based on professionalism and is stable and neutral. Kamal Alam writes that it’s “one of the only armies in the Arab world, where Greek Orthodox, Maronite Catholics, Sunni, Druze and Alawite can all rise to the top without prejudice based on sect or religion”.
He also highlights that, before the war, the Syrian school and healthcare systems were the envy of the Arab world. You could say the same of Cuba, another one-party state that the US for a long time misjudged. The picture Alam paints is of a stable and prosperous Syria in which the population and neighbouring states had a strong vested interest in the continuation of the Assad regime. Certainly it was not perfect seen through Western eyes, seeking conventional democracy but it was the best thing on offer. It is of course ironic that meddling by western powers nearly succeeded in imposing anarchy and it was only through Russia’s intervention that Assad has survived.
Now for something completely different. Andrew Devonshire told Kenneth Rose that when Lord Sefton was staying at Chatsworth he watched the Beatles singing on TV. Suddenly he remarked: ‘Nobody has ever accused me of being a bugger, but I do think the third boy from the left is rather fetching!’ This is the Election Observers’ anthem.
You state re Brexit -“I hope Theresa May comes out with credit”. It would be interesting to hear more of your views on this subject.
I was at the Bank of England at the same time as Mrs May and it appears to me that she has acted with the same self serving, ruthless lack of principle that I would have expected. She has always been prepared to sacrifice country, party, colleagues, allies for the benefit of her own career.
I would be interested in a view from someone ( e.g Nicholas Sabine) who knew her in another life. It seems to me, based on no personal knowledge ( although I did once shake her hand), that her famed resilience – both as Home Secretary and Prime Minister- is actually stubbornness, because she is not bright enough think for herself. And she lacks the imagination to see that she ought to change her mind and that it is acceptable to do so e.g. the net immigration target of less than 100,00 because Cameron once suggested it in passing; or the red lines that her then advisers ( since sacked) told her that was what Brexit was about. Is she actually rather stupid? For me, it is close race between Cameron and her as to which of them is the worst Prime Minister since, say, Lord North.