Bombing Syria in 2013 would not have toppled Assad

In hindsight, did the US, UK and France fail to seize the chance to topple President Bashar al-Assad in 2013?

This is the question that convinced Wes Streeting, the health secretary, to attack his colleague, Ed Miliband, the energy secretary and former Labour leader. Miliband orchestrated the vote that threw out the proposal by David Cameron’s government to join the US and France in airstrikes against Damascus in retaliation for chemical atrocities on the Syrian people.

Streeting concluded that if Labour in opposition had supported the vote for airstrikes, Assad’s regime would have fallen, thus bringing relief and liberation for the Syrian population.

Speaking on BBC’s Question Time on Thursday, Streeting said: ‘With insight, I think we can say, looking back on the events of 2013, that the hesitation of this country and the United States created a vacuum that Russia moved into and kept Assad in power for much longer.’

The conclusion might have some merit were it not for the fact that Russia, with military and political muscle, had created such a long-lasting footprint in Damascus that even a series of US-led airstrikes to destroy the regime’s chemical weapons sites would not have persuaded, let alone forced, Assad to seek refuge in Moscow, as he has now done 11 years later.