These heartbreaking photos put Syria's refugee crisis into perspective There
are accusations of ethnic or sectarian cleansing by Shia militias
against Sunni or by the Syrian Kurds against Arabs in areas under
Kurdish control. Isis pumps up communal hatred by its daily bombings of
civilian targets. But at this stage in the war every community is so
terrified of its traditional enemies that its members will run away
rather than risk an uncertain fate under occupation. The Syrian Kurdish
authorities are worried about whole districts becoming deserted as their
inhabitants leave for the EU. Isis acted similarly last year, giving
absent home-owners 10 days to return or lose their property.
The war in Syria and Iraq has now gone on about as long as the First World War in Europe a century ago. Calamity though it is, efforts to end the conflict other than by military victory have been episodic and ineffective. Western powers such as the US, UK and France, along with regional allies such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, grossly miscalculated in 2011, believing that President Bashar al-Assad would fall as swiftly as Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. They were not unduly concerned when this mistake became obvious, because they were convinced that the war in Syria could be contained, and failed to see that it would destabilise the precarious peace in Iraq.
Even as barbaric sectarian war tore apart Iraq and Syria, Western powers showed a curious detachment and lack of urgency when it came to restoring peace. It is still too early to say if this lackadaisical attitude has been changed by the arrival of desperate refugees battering at the gates of the EU. Previously, it was revealing that US Secretary of State John Kerry had devoted much more time to a patently doomed attempt to get Palestinian-Israeli negotiations under way than he had to ending the Iraq-Syrian war.
This insouciance is surprising until one takes on board that it is in keeping with Western attitudes to the transformation of the political landscape in the wider Middle East and North Africa since the end of the Cold War. There are now no less than nine ethnic, sectarian or separatist civil wars being waged in the vast area between Pakistan and Nigeria. Some conflicts are well known, such as the war in Afghanistan or the bloody raids of Boko Haram in north-east Nigeria, but who notices that 1.5 million people have been displaced in South Sudan since fighting resumed there in 2013, or that Khartoum has become a city state with only feeble control over much of the rest of Sudan?
The war in Syria and Iraq has now gone on about as long as the First World War in Europe a century ago. Calamity though it is, efforts to end the conflict other than by military victory have been episodic and ineffective. Western powers such as the US, UK and France, along with regional allies such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, grossly miscalculated in 2011, believing that President Bashar al-Assad would fall as swiftly as Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. They were not unduly concerned when this mistake became obvious, because they were convinced that the war in Syria could be contained, and failed to see that it would destabilise the precarious peace in Iraq.
Even as barbaric sectarian war tore apart Iraq and Syria, Western powers showed a curious detachment and lack of urgency when it came to restoring peace. It is still too early to say if this lackadaisical attitude has been changed by the arrival of desperate refugees battering at the gates of the EU. Previously, it was revealing that US Secretary of State John Kerry had devoted much more time to a patently doomed attempt to get Palestinian-Israeli negotiations under way than he had to ending the Iraq-Syrian war.
This insouciance is surprising until one takes on board that it is in keeping with Western attitudes to the transformation of the political landscape in the wider Middle East and North Africa since the end of the Cold War. There are now no less than nine ethnic, sectarian or separatist civil wars being waged in the vast area between Pakistan and Nigeria. Some conflicts are well known, such as the war in Afghanistan or the bloody raids of Boko Haram in north-east Nigeria, but who notices that 1.5 million people have been displaced in South Sudan since fighting resumed there in 2013, or that Khartoum has become a city state with only feeble control over much of the rest of Sudan?
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