Syria: Caught in a Trap
As the Syrian crisis intensifies, John McHugo looks at the country’s troubled relationship with the West during the Cold War and the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict.
The regime in Syria is a brutal and corrupt nationalist dictatorship with a youth movement inspired by that of North Korea. Some of the rebels opposing the regime aspire to democracy and secularism, but those who seem to be in the ascendant have intolerant agendas; some have even linked themselves to al-Qaeda. Yet observers are wrong if they comfort themselves with the thought that none of the causes of the barbarity in Syria at the moment can be laid at the door of the West.
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