Donald Trump has condemned Putin and Iran 'for supporting Animal Assad' - but that may be as far as it goes
onscience has become a flyfly from our time: here today, go tomorrow. For now, the world is riveted by the dreadful image of Douma, near the Syrian capital, Damascus. Dozens of people were killed, and hundreds more wounded after what is clearly a chemical weapons attack.
Children who die, their mouths mottled with foam, catch us through our sails. Criticism, the call to action, the global spasm of what Martin Amis calls "the shameful species": the pattern of response to the long Syrian disaster has become almost a ritual.
It was no different after Assad's chemical attack on Ghouta in August 2013; or when the image of Alan Kurdi, a drowning three-year-old refugee, becomes a symbol of shame in 2015; or the following year, because the same status is given to the image of Omran Daqneesh, a boy who was pulled from the ruins of Aleppo, covered with blood and dust; or last April, when President Trump, allegedly traumatized by a horror tape forged by Khan Khan's sarin attack, shot 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at al-Shayrat airport in western Syria.
At the time, Rex Tillerson (since being dismissed as secretary of state) declared US policy is that "the Assad family's government is coming to an end". If the patron of Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin, disliked him, it was too bad. Yet, so often, the fire and the anger are temporary.
Because his phone call congratulated Mr Putin on his re-election, Trump had signaled his intention to back out of the conflict and put "America first". Last Thursday he said definitely: "We will get out of Syria - like - soon." Really, the words of a statesman.
Of course, the horrific scenes in Douma have stalled Trump's desire to escape the Syrian conflict, at least for now. He has been tweeted with his customary dignity: "President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for supporting Animal Assad. Great price to pay ... another humanitarian disaster for no reason. SICK!"
But what kind of response will follow, and for how long? Like a flare, global furor will light up the geopolitical sky for a while and force heads of governments around the world to mingle with their anger. This issue will be discussed strongly at the United Nations. There may even be a security council resolution. With luck, donations to aid agencies will increase.
And then ... not much will happen. Pictures from Douma will soon be snatched from the digital store window, replaced by sports scandals or the latest commercial endeavors by the Kardashian clan. A strong will statement made by an international organization will merge into bureaucratic inertia. And the cycle will start again.
That need not be so. There were times, after the Ghouta massacre, when Assad could be forced to the table by a sustained and coordinated military and diplomatic campaign. A long truce will stabilize the region, containing conflicting factions and offer at least a glimmer of hope that sustainable peace may be mediated, possibly involving the complex religiosity of Syria controlled by Ba'ath.
Many thousands of UN-assigned peacekeeping troops will be needed, as well as a daunting commitment to the reconstruction of the destroyed state infrastructure. The task will be difficult, long, expensive: all the things that the 21st century foreign policy should avoid. But that is at least imaginable.
We were caught asleep by the cult of a national destiny, cruel authoritarianism and aggressive foreign policy
The strategy was born dead for a variety of reasons - one of which, embarrassingly, was Ed Miliband's refusal in August 2013 to support David Cameron's call in the Commons for an urgent response to the attack.
Why do we let this happen? First, the West is prominently failing to recover from the trauma of Iraq. To this day, the word is still an abbreviation of national shame, which plagues arguments for military action in any form. It has been a veto power deployed haphazardly by those who oppose the Atlantic alliance, domestic security measures against Islamic extremism, or just about anything else. Too often the consequences of Iraq are not a reasonable warning but a pretentious postponement.
Second, we have no proper Russian doctrine. After refusing to usher the former Soviet bloc into the family of free countries with modern Marshall Plan - assuming, on the contrary, that elections and free markets will do our trick - and remain, unsure how to deal with what Russia has become.
We were caught asleep by the cult of a national destiny, cruel authoritarianism and aggressive foreign policy. In the information wars, he has made fools in the hemisphere who launched the digital revolution, grasping so quickly how to make their shiny toy weapons.
I am, unfairly, a liberal interventionist, a man who believes in the "doctrine of responsibility for protection" (or "R2P") in international law, codified by the UN World Summit in 2005, which mandates "the use of collective power" to stop genocide and the massacre of civilians. I strongly support generous and enthusiastic international development spending in the duty of rich countries to receive refugees.
But the world turns away from such ideas, does not it? Western countries build walls, break away from the European Union, dilute democracy, embrace isolationist populism from the right. I hope this is not a long-term solution, but certainly in power.
So do not expect the horror triggered by Douma to be matched by the desire to do something too significant about it. Conscience will have its moment, as it always does. And then, tragically, normal service will resume.
Well written