Russia’s military intervention in the Syrian crisis appears to be a rehearsal for a wider global conflict. Russia is bombing the US-backed rebels in the contested war zones, a harbinger of a much wider conflagration. This conflict is the Middle East version of the Spanish Civil War, which was itself a dress rehearsal for the World War II.
It was Havelock Ellis who once said, “There is nothing war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it.”
I would also like to share an interesting quote with my fellow readers: “An optimist says war is impossible. A pessimist says war is inevitable. A realist says war is inevitable unless we make it impossible.”
We are blinded by ignorance, as another world war unfolds in 3D before our very eyes. The word tragic has often been used to describe the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan but it is a pale description of the raging madness that has engulfed these areas.
It was Mark Twain who once said, “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” A potential calamity is brewing in the Middle East and the world is paying insufficient attention. — Farouk Araie, Johannesburg
The Mideast crises
