Charles Stross on Syria

Over at Charlie's Diary, Charles Stross has commented on the prospects of a Western intervention in Syria in a piece written prior to the surprising refusal of the British Parliament to support such action, but still relevant as this situation unfolds.

As anyone familiar with his political commentary might imagine, Stross is not in favor of "sending in the bombers," pointing to the dim prospects of its achieving a good outcome in an already deeply fractured country on grounds that appear questionable (given the uncertainty about responsibility for the August 21 chemical weapons attack), and the likelihood of its leading to "yet another colonial war in the Middle East." And as it happens, his feelings regarding the situation are much in line with those of war-weary and austerity-weary Western electorates hardly eager to go to war yet another internally divided Middle Eastern country on the basis of ambiguous WMD claims by governments they decreasingly trust--the French and American electorates included.