VIDEO: Tariq Ali Speaks Out Against Possible Syrian Invasion
Yesterday, Tariq Ali published an op-ed denouncing possible United States military intervention in Syria. Ali accuses the United States of stretching their intelligence reports as an excuse to further stir the civil war and assist the opposition they had armed. He writes:
The Syrian regime was slowly re-establishing its control over the country against the opposition armed by the West and its tributary states in the region (Saudi Arabia and Qatar). This situation required correction. The opposition in this depressing civil war needed to be strengthened militarily and psychologically.
With the White House having announced that the recent chemical attacks in Syria were unequivocally the work of the Assad regime, many are anxious to see whether the Obama administration will now pursue the promised military intervention. To elaborate on his editorial piece, Tariq Ali joined Steven Clemons, Washington editor-at-large for The Atlantic, on Democracy Now to discuss who is to blame for the use of chemical weapons in Syria and the politics of a Syrian invasion.
For more on the reasons why the United States should not pursue a military intervention in Syria, see Patrick Cockburn's "Only a Peace Conference Can Stop Further Bloodshed” and Owen Jones’s “For the Syrians’ sakes and for our own, we must not intervene.”
Additional commentary has appeared on Counterpunch, Common Dreams, The Hindu, and Informed Comment.
Visit London Review of Books to read Tariq Ali's article in full and Democracy Now to read the transcript of the video.
STOP PRESS: A new article from Tariq at the London Review of Books blog: "Rejoice. Rejoice. The first chain of vassaldom has been broken." But:
Too much celebration is premature. The Stop the War coalition in Britain has no equivalent elsewhere in Europe or America. Even in isolated times (the invasion and bombing of Libya, for example) the pressure was kept up. The demonstration called for tomorrow is even more necessary than before, to celebrate our triumph here without forgetting that Obama is off to war again.