Yassin al-Haj Saleh

September 19, 2015

alQuds Newspaper

 Since the early days, the West’s handling of the Syrian conflict has had a set of characteristics that raise questions about the political and intellectual credibility of the elite and political leaders in the West. The first of these characteristics is dealing with outcomes, not the roots and causes, and consequently being narrow minded politically, considering a thin slice of the present myopically, not only without historical depth, but also without even an understanding of the ongoing conflict and its dynamics. Secondly, the Western powers’ policies are not rooted in clear values of justice, freedom and human dignity. They often lack a political vision of the conflict, confining themselves to a “crisis management” approach, which ignores the moral dimension and deals with the latest developments, and in the longer term construes to make obvious issues mysterious and complex issues even more complex. The third characteristic is the fractional perspective that divides the conflict into disconnected parts, and deals with some parts but not others, resulting in even more difficult situations. A fourth characteristic related to the previous one, is the fragmented vision, in particular the lack of a global perspective when handling problems that are global in part and have become even more global during the four and a half years of conflict. استمر في القراءة ←