Well, it has to be said, the fighting in Syria, as sick and disgusting as it is, seems to be unavoidable without intervention by outside forces.
It's been almost two and a half years since rebel forces rose up against President Bashar al-Assad's regime in March 2011, and very rarely do you see such grievances as these settled swiftly or peacefully.
With the death toll now in excess of 100,000, it's easy to see that this civil war between Assad's controlling government and coalition forces, now officially known as the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, has been a blood bath. But over the past few months, all indications seem to point to Assad following in his father's footsteps – accused of several human rights violations.
Since those disgusting, bone-chilling reports surfaced on Wednesday confirming that between 322 and 1,300 people, including over 100 children, were killed by alleged chemical weapons attacks on the eastern suburbs of Damascus, the entire western world has blown up, with both the public and the media demanding the UN take action against those responsible.
With UN officials currently on the ground in Syria to investigate claims President Assad launched several warheads containing nerve gas at the suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar, collectively known as eastern Ghouta, last week, many are expecting to hear news sooner rather than later that could leave high-profile world leaders with a decision to make.
Reports on Monday suggested the UN team were being fired at by several snipers in the ‘buffer zone area' as they made their way to the site of the alleged attack, so it seems somebody doesn't want the world knowing what really happened on that fateful day. Nobody was hurt in the attack, and the convoy is expecting to head back to the area in the coming days.
As has been seen in the past during confrontations between Israel and Palestine, the first two years of this Syrian civil war, and the uprisings in northern African countries over the past two years, the UN and its ‘leaders', the likes of the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and Canada are more than happy to sit back and watch, allowing opposing and warring parties to fight it out. But there comes a time when they need to step in, and in light of these chemical weapons attacks, that time is now.
If these reports are true and Assad approved these attacks, it would represent the worst known use of chemical weapons since Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988, and I think we all know how that ended.
The Syrian government is still claiming it had no part in the attacks, continuing to blame the opposing rebel group. If we are to believe what we read, it seems the United States has already made its mind up, with CBC News reporting a senior White House official stating Assad's approval to allow the UN to move into Syria and conduct an investigation was “too late to be credible”, and that the United States has “very little doubt” it was Assad's forces that approved and carried out the chemical attack.
Make no mistake about it. If it comes to light that Assad is the one that approved the attacks, he may have unintentionally made his last command, with Obama warning the use of the deadly gases would cross a “red line”. Now we'll have to wait and see what happens in the following weeks.
Entering another war is never something anyone should look forward to or take lightly, but in circumstances such as this when the man involved is allegedly using chemical weapons on his own people it becomes a necessity – certainly more of a necessity than going to war over a patch of land or a few barrels of oil anyway.
