Mick Hartley

Terry Glavin:

There isn’t really any such thing as “Syria” anymore….

From the Mediterranean Sea at Latakia to Anbar province in the Iraqi desert, the vast swath of the Middle East where Syria used to be is now just a patchwork of jihadist mini-emirates, regime-held enclaves, warlord fiefdoms and small pockets of democratic resistance under the control of the Free Syrian Army. This is the “worst-case scenario” we’ve been hearing about for the past two years.

It is important to remember the reasons why this particular Arab Spring phenomenon — which began as a cheerfully optimistic, largely non-violent and fervently pro-democracy uprising led mainly by teenagers — degenerated so quickly into a bloodbath of reaction, repression, counter-revolution and savagery.

It happened because the NATO countries, “led from behind” by U.S. president Barack Obama, allowed it to happen. It happened because the White House has preferred to avoid any confrontations with Moscow, Beijing, Tehran or Hezbollah. This is the Obama Doctrine. It’s all about abstention and capitulation, and just one consequence is that you can’t tell anymore who holds the United States in greater contempt: the Israelis or the Saudis, the Egyptians or the Turks.

It’s not just that there is no such thing as Syria any more. The other penny that hasn’t dropped is that there is no such thing as an America that is a force for progress in the world any more, either, at least not for the moment. History’s clock has turned backwards.