The recent conflict in Syria brings back memories of similar conflicts across the Middle East €" none more so than the civil war which raged in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990. The causes were multi-faceted. But the fallout was tremendous. Between 150-230,000 civilians died; 1,000,000 were wounded; 350,000 were displaced and 1,000,000 emigrated.
Antecedents for that conflict went back as far as the Ottoman Empire, through to the French administration and the Cold War. Although broadly bounded by the Arab language, culture and geography, the Lebanese are religiously divided €" with large numbers of Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Maronites and Greek Orthordox and Catholics.
Arguably such divisions were institutionalised by political settlements. Moreover it is arguable that the huge presence of Palestinian refugees helped to unsettle an already fragile equilibrium. The rise of militias created an arms race between the ever more threatened and divided denominations.
It is arguable that international interference prolonged the conflict. But what is more interesting is that the world failed to spot the signs and pre-empt the problems. In an already fractured Middle East and in a polarised international community, Lebanon came to a boiling point long after the world should have helped to turn its temperature down.
Today in Syria, the causes of conflict are not identical. Syria is a religious mosaic, although not as much as Lebanon. Today the conflict is between two factions €" one in support of the Alawite government, the other against. Corruption and autocracy have created the conditions for conflict.
But elsewhere in the world, we see the same problems. Corruption, autocracy and ethnic hatred fully or partly help explain civil wars in Somalia, Sudan and Mali, as well as tensions in Nigeria and Sri Lanka. In Europe, the West was slow to see how the former Yugoslavia would descend into chaos once the iron grip of the Communist Party was no longer there.
Lebanon created a refugee crisis. Now more Lebanese are outside the country than within it. Today Bashar al-Assad's behaviour has displaced hundreds of thousands of Syrians €" most to neighbouring countries like Turkey and Lebanon. The interference of other Arab states may exacerbate the tension, while the US, UK, France, Russia and China look on.
The West's response to such conflicts is too often reactive rather than proactive. Recent interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq seemed to lack a clear focus and game-plan not only to win hearts and minds, but to figure out what actually needed doing once the conflict ended. In Libya, the West has pulled out and left a weak government in Tripoli unable to contain warring factions, which have spilled into Mali to fuel that conflict.
At a local level the Arab and wider Islamic world needs to get its house in order. If countries in the region want the West to leave them alone, then they must ensure that corruption is curtailed and life chances improved. So long as kleptocrats and autocrats displace their citizens into the West, the latter have a right to ask what the hell is going on.
Afghanistan and Iraq have demonstrated the clear limitations of hard power without soft power. It is likely that hundreds of thousands of Syrians will end up in the West €" as Lebanese ended up in Canada, Australia and America.
Rather than a West which congratulates itself on failing to act sooner and preventing forcible displacement €" as well as taking the brains and brawn of a developing world which needs them more than the West €" there should be a concerted effort not to just drop bombs, but offer tangible administrative assistance: men with clipboards, rather than missiles.
While some ivory tower isolationists may condemn even that as neo-imperialist posturing, consider the fact that in the post-colonial age power never passed to the people. It got transferred to kleptocrats, dynasties and gangsters. There comes a point when people do not care who feeds them, vaccinates them and employs them. They just want to live.
If people rejected the developed world, they would not keep moving there. Equally the developed world does not redeem itself by waiting until it is too late to help the developing world. Nor does stealing foreign labour make the West more moral. What would, is to see the West become more proactive not reactive, and win hearts and minds, not gun battles.
Antecedents for that conflict went back as far as the Ottoman Empire, through to the French administration and the Cold War. Although broadly bounded by the Arab language, culture and geography, the Lebanese are religiously divided €" with large numbers of Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Maronites and Greek Orthordox and Catholics.
Arguably such divisions were institutionalised by political settlements. Moreover it is arguable that the huge presence of Palestinian refugees helped to unsettle an already fragile equilibrium. The rise of militias created an arms race between the ever more threatened and divided denominations.
It is arguable that international interference prolonged the conflict. But what is more interesting is that the world failed to spot the signs and pre-empt the problems. In an already fractured Middle East and in a polarised international community, Lebanon came to a boiling point long after the world should have helped to turn its temperature down.
Today in Syria, the causes of conflict are not identical. Syria is a religious mosaic, although not as much as Lebanon. Today the conflict is between two factions €" one in support of the Alawite government, the other against. Corruption and autocracy have created the conditions for conflict.
But elsewhere in the world, we see the same problems. Corruption, autocracy and ethnic hatred fully or partly help explain civil wars in Somalia, Sudan and Mali, as well as tensions in Nigeria and Sri Lanka. In Europe, the West was slow to see how the former Yugoslavia would descend into chaos once the iron grip of the Communist Party was no longer there.
Lebanon created a refugee crisis. Now more Lebanese are outside the country than within it. Today Bashar al-Assad's behaviour has displaced hundreds of thousands of Syrians €" most to neighbouring countries like Turkey and Lebanon. The interference of other Arab states may exacerbate the tension, while the US, UK, France, Russia and China look on.
The West's response to such conflicts is too often reactive rather than proactive. Recent interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq seemed to lack a clear focus and game-plan not only to win hearts and minds, but to figure out what actually needed doing once the conflict ended. In Libya, the West has pulled out and left a weak government in Tripoli unable to contain warring factions, which have spilled into Mali to fuel that conflict.
At a local level the Arab and wider Islamic world needs to get its house in order. If countries in the region want the West to leave them alone, then they must ensure that corruption is curtailed and life chances improved. So long as kleptocrats and autocrats displace their citizens into the West, the latter have a right to ask what the hell is going on.
Afghanistan and Iraq have demonstrated the clear limitations of hard power without soft power. It is likely that hundreds of thousands of Syrians will end up in the West €" as Lebanese ended up in Canada, Australia and America.
Rather than a West which congratulates itself on failing to act sooner and preventing forcible displacement €" as well as taking the brains and brawn of a developing world which needs them more than the West €" there should be a concerted effort not to just drop bombs, but offer tangible administrative assistance: men with clipboards, rather than missiles.
While some ivory tower isolationists may condemn even that as neo-imperialist posturing, consider the fact that in the post-colonial age power never passed to the people. It got transferred to kleptocrats, dynasties and gangsters. There comes a point when people do not care who feeds them, vaccinates them and employs them. They just want to live.
If people rejected the developed world, they would not keep moving there. Equally the developed world does not redeem itself by waiting until it is too late to help the developing world. Nor does stealing foreign labour make the West more moral. What would, is to see the West become more proactive not reactive, and win hearts and minds, not gun battles.
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