The multiple and competing foreign agendas that have prolonged the conflict in Syria

Around the same time that Britain was indulging in a national exercise in backslapping over the country’s role in defeating Hitler in Europe 75 years ago, we were confronted with the truth about the country’s sordid and decidedly inglorious role in the conflict in Syria, now into its ninth year.

In an exclusive article at Middle East Eye on 11 May, Ian Cobain and Alice Ross reveal that from 2013 the British government began funding ‘propaganda programmes’ in Syria with the objective of undermining ‘both the Assad government and the Islamic State group and bolster elements within the Syrian opposition’. The codename ascribed to these programmes was Operation Volute and, according to a government review produced in 2016, it was plagued by ‘fundamental shortcomings’ both operationally and in planning.

Most enlightening of all, Operation Volute was aggressively pushed by the Ministry of Defence after Parliament voted against direct British military action in Syria in 2013, doing so for no other reason than ‘we had to be seen to do things’ with a view to impressing Washington.

As to the legality of Operation Volute, which was funded to the tune of some £9 million, the review also highlighted that some of the ‘contractors’ employed on the ground in Syria had…