Syria: War Without End Game

When George W. Bush declared his War on Terror, he was looking for allies to shoulder the burden and to help fight the common foe, but little did he, or any of us at that time, envision just what that war would look like, and who would be fighting it, a little more than ten years later.

Could any of us have known that the terrorist's dream of one day challenging governments, of massing armies of followers to their cruel cause, would be realized on the road to Damascus, and that the West would move from being the victim of Terror, to become it's greatest sponsor?

What madness has possessed our leaders is still a mystery to me, but madness it is.

We have changed from the opponent of Terrorism to it's champion, and the notion that our ambition of removing Bashar al-Assad is justified by the means of murder and mutilation mocks those who perished on 11th. September 2001.

The self-referencing cartwheel that is our fear of Iran, and the destruction of the most pluralist and secular state left in the entire Middle East, is nothing short of insanity in itself. The fact that we now support and applaud extremism and intolerance, just leaves me stunned.

As someone who grew up throughout the cold war years, when each International Incident could be the last, I cannot fathom today's thinking. We stood then for Democracy and Freedom, feeling that they were values worth risking everything for, but today?

The regime in Syria has been a tough and uncompromising opponent for many years, but is our enemy's enemy really someone that we want to embrace when their methods are so cruel, and their avowed aim is our very own destruction.