The city of Palmyra, recently liberated from Isis, has seen a return to civilisation and culture with a performance by a Russian orchestra. The concert, conducted by a ‘close associate’ of Vladimir Putin, was of course a propaganda exercise – but what a propaganda exercise!
It fills me with genuine sadness that no western power would ever think to pull such a stunt, and this reflects a deeper problem with our foreign policy; that is, what are we promoting?
Western policy in the region since the start of the Arab spring has been crippled by an absence of clear, set goals, and a lack of confidence in our own ideals; in Syria we flirted with removing President Assad, despite having no idea what would follow, and a suspicion that the strongest opposition were Islamists – this policy having worked so well in Iraq.
Worst of all, though, western foreign policy is hampered by an ability to impose our values on the wider Middle East, because we don’t know what they are.
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