How the West made a mess of Syria

It was the last week of August 2013. I was Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The course of the Arab uprisings of 2011, which had been greeted with such naïve optimism at the time, had become bloody, not least in Syria. Only the previous week there had been a chemical weapons attack on opposition-controlled areas of Damascus in the ancient oasis – the Ghouta – that lies to the south-east of the city.  UN inspectors were begrudgingly and belatedly allowed access by the Syrian government. They concluded that the chemical in question was Sarin. Hundreds of people had been killed, many others severely injured. Some may have been insurgents. The overwhelming majority were civilians, men, women and children, all trapped in a war between a brutal regime and increasingly radicalised and violent militias.  

The Assad regime –with Russian support – claimed its opponents were responsible. No one seriously believed them. The missiles had probably been fired from Mount Qasioun, the great mountain overlooking Damascus, where the Presidential palace and other regime installations were situated.