Liberal Imperialism and the Refusal to Learn http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/forte100811.html

Here are two recent examples, both involving Syria, but really much more about us than about Syria. In fact, Syria really does not exist -- you could insert the name of any nation-state outside of Greater Europe (Europe and its settler states), or even a fictitious name the way that NATO and the Pentagon do -- let's say Southland. First, there is Robert Fisk. Some fancy Fisk to be a radical reporter, a courageous speaker of truth. He fancies himself as such too, declaring himself "in favour of the suffering." I regard him as a little old Englishman, prone to betraying the prejudices of his dominant class. He finds radical difference rather distasteful, as his comments on Hamas tell us, and wishes everyone could stand in single file behind his preferred world order.

He has now taken to snapping at NATO, not for what it has done and is doing to Libya, but for what it failed to do to Syria. "The trouble is," Fisk informs us, "that everyone has been running out of patience with Syria since the spring." Everyone. Patience. We are uniform, and we have certain demands. "Had Messrs Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama stopped short after they saved Benghazi" (they saved Benghazi?), Fisk adds, "they may have had the spittle . . . and the munitions to destroy some of Assad's 8,000 tanks." An American militarist might have worded this slightly differently, preserving the same meaning: "they lack the cojones to royally kick some Syrian ass." Fisk objects to UK Foreign Secretary William Hague for "waffling on about how little the West can do to stop Assad" -- the West, I did not insert that. "This is rubbish," Fisk of Arabia adds, before proceeding to give some military advice:

"Britain's RAF bases in Cyprus are infinitely closer to Syria than to Libya." He is quite clear that he wants regime change, and for the West to carry out that regime change -- though again, and as always, it violates international law (not that it matters, that is the law of the strong against the weak). Fisk writes, "The Israelis don't want regime change in Damascus. Do the Americans?" But then he ends: "Assad is almost certainly doomed" -- well alright then, so do you want/need Western intervention to fulfill your goals, or not? Perhaps he is uncertain about the certainty, or just not thinking . . . historically.

All regimes are always doomed: not a single Egyptian pharaoh, Inca or Roman emperor is alive to disagree. The question is when, how soon, and here Fisk would like to see more Western agency in taking over from Syrian protesters, even after they repeatedly proclaimed that it is precisely Western intervention of Fisk's liking that they do not want. Come to think of it, theirs are the only voices absent from Fisk's call to Western arms.