i think threat wise we should be invading Leeds or bradford as thats where the most recent has come from.....
Leaving Mugabe alone has always been more of a guilt trip than anything else. I'm pretty sure the UK were supposed to be keeping an eye on the first elections when he was voted in and any cries of fix would have soon been thrown back at us.
Mugabe probably did win his first election fair and square but there are too few around who can remember that far back to be certain.
Cameron is raising his personal stake by threatening to sack Ministers who did not give him their support. It could end in tears.
Democracy in action ! It's about time British governments stopped committing our armed forces to conflicts just to further their own political ambitions and so they can pose on a world stage ( Tony Blair was the master at this - committing British forces to more conflicts than any other PM since WW2,largely to further his own political career ). Incidentally, invading a sovereign country purely to force regime change is illegal under the UN convention - although when Blair and Bush will actually be brought to court for doing this ( Iraq ) is anyone's guess... Interesting how the West decides which conflicts they will and won't get involved in... Not much interest in throwing the Chinese out of Tibet is there ? But then it's a long way away and has no oil - call me cynical...
Before you square up to a fight, you have to ask yourself a) is it worth the effort? b) am I likely to win? If you were going to take on the Chinese over Tibet, the answer to both questions would be "no". That takes about 1 second of thought. If you were going to do justice in Zimbabwe, the answer to the first question would be "no" the answer to the second would be "probably eventually". In the case of Syria, the answer to the first question would probably be "yes - maybe". But it's not clear cut what winning would look like. If it looked like Iraq, it would barely be a victory. As for being able to win, probably not without having stirred up an entire hornet's nest, setting fire to Iran and Lebanon and God knows where else. TBH, if you'd asked the questions of Afghanistan, the answer to the first question would probably have been "no" and the answer to the second a definite "no".
Cameron has only himself and the Americans to blame. He forced a vote several days too early (and thus lost). Terrible timing. Then the Americans pull a rabbit out of a hat and provide pretty good evidence - a lot more than Dave had - about Assad being the perpetrator. Unfortunately, 24 hours too late for Dave. They thus hung him out to dry (can't see why though) and made him doubly look like an idiot whilst shooting themselves in the foot, unless, of course, they don't actually want to have to build in British considerations into their plans but just do what they want to do. Dave is now wailing and gnashing his teeth, but he was shafted by his American mates, lost out to Labour and really has no one but himself to blame. Just poor political judgement. You will also remember about Andy Coulson and other examples of his poor political judgement. I just don't think he's very good at this - not astute enough.
I don't think anyone is coming out of this very well and I don't see any kind of Utopia just around the corner any time soon. Conflict seems to be the natural state of affairs unfortunately.
The Middle East has always been at war with each other/itself and always will be whilst the people there live in the dark ages. Nothing we do (or don't) will change that, leave them to it...
As I have suggested before, the principal strategic aim of British foreign policy for the past half-century has been both to maintain the "special relationship" as the USA's closest ally and to install Britain at the heart of the European Union. These two aims are, of course, fundamentally incompatible but achieving both of them at once is highly desirable. Tony Blair was the master of keeping both balls in the air simultaneously, a brilliant feat for which he gets little credit. Sooner or later we would be forced to choose one or the other, USA or EU. It looks as if David Cameron is managing to drop both balls, by falling out with both the USA and the EU simultaneously. This is, as you say, poor political judgment on a spectacular scale.
And why should be surprised, the man is a complete lightweight, he is a modern politician of absolutely no substance, he just makes speeches and is obsessed with self image and self promotion, sadly a bit like Blair.
Hang on! Have the Syrians attacked us? Why the fack should we bomb them? Let the fackers sort out their own problems. We should never have got involved in Afghanistan or Iraq, then I wouldn't have been bombed in London! Don't see too many other European countries apart from France getting involved... Fackin ragheads causing all the worlds major problems...
Unfortunately it is the O word that appears to be driving this thing. We got stuck into Libya early doors because of the potential oil exports from its additional reserves. I think the conversations go thus:- "We'll have some of that Libiyan stuff thank you so get Gadaffi out and we can have a portion." "Egypt?, we'll hold off and see what happens there" despite being a moderate ally of the west. No oil ya see. "Syria, Where is that exactly? do we get oil from there ?" "Not really no" "Ok leave them to it. The Russians support them don't they?" "Bugger one side or the other has used Chemical weapons and that's just not cricket, I suppose we have to get involved now or give them a hard stare at the very least!" Seriously, we left any involvement in Syria far too late. Those who started out as rebels trying to overthrow a tyrannical government have effectively been infiltrated and the cause diluted by any nutter wanting to fight another person, including AQAP who see the conflict as an opportunity to expand their field of operations. So now the question is exactly who are the baddies in the Syrian conflict? One thing is for certain, If the US go in it will piss Russia off to the point that the original issue of Syria will become effectively a non issue. Although, the use of chemical weapons is abhorrent in any field of conflict.
