Mick Hartley

Boris Johnson – our new Foreign Secretary, let's not forget – has a piece in the Times today [£] about Syria. Actually, it's not bad. He's highly critical of Russia – to the extent that a Foreign Secretary can be openly critical of such a major player – and insists, refreshingly, that Assad can play no part in Syria's future.

That is why the entire international community is committed, at least in principle, to getting rid of the Syrian dictator. Even the Russians have accepted that there must be political transition. But then the Russians are also employing their military muscle to prevent him from losing and to keep him in power.

When the Russians are asked to explain this seemingly indefensible conduct they reply with one stubborn question — the question with which we began: What then? What follows Assad?

It is a question whose potency derives from the Iraq war, and the total failure of the West to prepare for the consequences of removing Saddam. We unseated a Baathist strongman, and chaos ensued.

Why should the same not happen again? There are two answers. The first is that Assad is not a strongman but a frighteningly weak leader who can never again hold his country together — not after the slaughter he has engaged in. The Syrian people will surely not feel safe as long as he is in command of the army or able to send planes over their streets.

The second is that this time there is an alternative. Today in London we are hosting the Syrian High Negotiations Committee, the broadest-based opposition grouping in Syria. It will set out its vision for a post-Assad Syria that is democratic and pluralistic but which also makes the commonsensical assumption that you cannot just sweep away all the existing structures of the state. That was (one of) the mistakes in Iraq, and it will not be repeated.

Good luck with the meeting. No really. That's what politicians are supposed to do – negotiate political settlements. It's all very late in the day, though, when so many possible avenues have already been closed off by international inertia as the situation spiralled out of control. It's impossible at the moment to see the major players like Russia or Iran or indeed Turkey ever settling on a happy route to a democratic post-Assad Syria. But I can see that the effort must be made. And maybe Boris is the man to make it.

That bit about Iraq, though. "We unseated a Baathist strongman, and chaos ensued"…so we mustn't let it happen again. I realise that this isn't Johnson's position, but rather the position of those like the Russians (and, in effect, the Americans under Obama) who still support Assad. And the point about not preparing for the post-Saddam world in Iraq is a reasonable criticism. But the absurdity of it is breath-taking given the state that Syria is in. The "chaos" of post-Saddam Iraq looks like Tunbridge Wells by comparison. How much worse can it possibly get?