HENRY McCULLOCH writes:

Although I oppose U.S. intervention in Syria for any purpose short of retaliation in the event of a direct attack by Syrian forces on American territory or U.S. interests (neither of which has happened, nor is likely), there is still room for nuance in looking at the U.S. government response to what is happening in Syria – and by extension throughout Arab-ruled lands.

One nuance is just whom U.S. intervention would benefit – whether or not it is true that the Assad regime was behind the recent chemical attacks, which still looks to me like a case not proved.

We have all seen evidence of atrocities on both sides – including the video-snippet of apparent cannibalism Vladimir Putin likes to cite.  The latest twist in the Obama administration’s attempts to sell intervention is to characterise the Syrian opposition as somehow becoming increasingly moderate.  Presumably by that Messrs. Obama, Kerry, et al., are trying to convince us that the leading opposition groups are becoming less vengefully Islamic. Even if those groups have conned the easily gulled John McCain and Lindsey Graham into thinking so, I don’t believe it.  Fighters who believe they are gaining the upper hand become more emboldened; more, not less, inclined to hew to their hard line.  If already hardened to their task by religious fervour amounting to homicidal and suicidal fanaticism, all the more so.

Occasionally, though, the groups fighting Bashar al-Assad’s admittedly reprehensible regime show their true nature in ways even U.S. diplomats and congressmen should be able to understand.  One very recent example is the Jabhat al-Nusra (hard-core Sunni Moslem) occupation and devastation of the ancient Syrian village of Maaloula. Maaloula’s Christian roots are so deep – it is the village where St. Paul’s follower St. Tecla took refuge to avoid an arranged marriage – that its people still speak Aramaic rather than Arabic. Maaloula is not on any artery or supply route, an out of the way village of no tactical use whatever.  Occupying and vandalising it can serve only one purpose: a show of Jihad Triumphant intended further to terrorise Syria’s already thoroughly cowed Christians.

Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Qaeda-linked groups like it will be the immediate – and probably only – beneficiaries of a U.S. intervention against the Assad regime. Yet they are clearly hard-line jihadist Moslem groups acting to impose sharia and, ideally, reviving the Caliphate wherever they can. They are more viscerally anti-American, anti-Western and anti-Christian than the – again, admittedly far from angelic – regimes they would replace.  The U.S. government should have learnt that lesson from Egypt and Libya; actually, it had no excuse not to know that long before the mis-named Arab Spring erupted.

How can Americans accept their government’s intervening to assist Moslem groups that have among their stated aims the subjection or elimination of the Christian populations of the first Christian lands?

And what are the true motives of a U.S. government that would aid such groups?  Let’s pray that House Republican back-benchers (we can have no confidence in their leaders), joined by liberal Democrats true to their anti-war beliefs, will be able to stop this drive for intervention that can only strengthen America’s enemies.

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