The big lessons for the UK from Syria and Libya – be wary when and where you intervene
Not intervening in Syria in 2013 because of the civil war that followed our intervention in Libya was a key moment in the weakening of the West. It emboldened Putin and Assad and fuelled the Syrian refugee crisis which peaked in 2015.
The collapse of the evil Assad regime in Syria has been the best news of the year.
The uprising against Assad began as part of the Arab Spring back in 2011. But the high hopes then were soon disappointed as civil war broke out and dictatorships survived across the Middle East. It would be an extraordinary coda if, almost 14 years after the start of civil protests in Syria, they finally get some kind of victory and peace. The chances of a Western liberal democracy are low but the Assad regime was so cruel that almost any alternative will be better.
The Arab Spring began with a revolt in Tunisia. It spread across much of the Arab world.
A surge of young people, as medical advances brings down infant death rates whilst mothers are still having lots of children, is the big demographic challenge facing every society on its route to modernity. If an open labour market sets these young people to productive work then you are on your way to prosperity. But the closed patronage-based labour markets of the Arab world created millions of under-employed discontented young people, ripe for revolt.
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