A dress rehearsal for a wider war
Dear Sir,
Russia’s military intervention in the Syrian crisis is a dress rehearsal for a wider global conflict. Russian warplanes are bombing US-backed rebels in the contested war zones, a harbinger of a much wider conflagration. This conflict is a Middle East version of the Spanish Civil War which was actually a dress rehearsal for World War II.
The doctor, writer and social reformer, Havelock Ellis, once said: “There is nothing war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it.”
An optimist says, war is impossible. A pessimist says, war is inevitable. A realist says, war is inevitable unless we make it impossible.
We are blinded by ignorance as World War III unfolds in 3D before our very eyes. The word tragic has often been used to describe the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Libya, etc but it is a pale description of the raging madness, that has engulfed these areas. The magnitude of the destruction witnessed by these countries is catastrophic, unseen since the horrors of World War II.
History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes, according to Mark Twain.
A potential calamity is brewing with lightning speed in the Middle East and the world is paying insufficient attention.
Farouk Araie, farouk.araie@telkomsa
A recipe for escalation
Dear Sir,
Russia’s involvement in the troubled Syrian territory has further complicated the situation on the ground. Russia’s record, both in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, has been questionable so its latest intervention raises a lot of suspicion.
The Russian intervention in Syria may change the tone of the ongoing conflict and it could escalate.
I wonder why a collective effort led by the US could not halt the terrorism spreading across the region and beyond. Security being a global issue, the countries across the world must have uniformity in their approach to tackle the troubles facing them.
Moscow says it is targeting the Islamic State militant group in Syria, but most of its strikes have hit other rebel factions fighting the Assad regime.
The Russian intervention has upended the strategy of the US administration of President Barack Obama, which has led a separate bombing campaign against Islamic State for a year but has failed to establish strong ties with moderate fighters on the ground.
Ramachandran Nair, (Address supplied)
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