Morning Star letter on Saudis and Syria

Of course, the British monarchy and Tory party`s "appalling long-standing" relationships with the Saudis are hindering the government from "pressurising rich Gulf rulers into cutting off funding Isis", and, as Lord Ashdown says, stopping those funds would be more effective than bombing campaigns (Morning Star,25/11/15). Ashdown is also correct to question why Saudi and Qatari plane are not involved in the bombing campaign; he has often asked how will we destroy Isis "by killing more Muslim Arabs with Western bombs"?  The question about why Corbyn has received so much criticism from his own MPs for saying that our recent record of intervention in the Middle East, not to mention our historical one, has "increased the threat to the UK" can only be answered by examining both their motives and their inability to read political opportunities correctly! 

    Labour MPs should be focusing their attention on the Tories, and in particular, Cameron`s refusal to publish a report on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, because it did not find it a "terrorist organisation" as the Saudis had hoped. The MPs should be asking why the PM ordered the review in the first place, when it was obvious that democracy, that so-called "British value", which led to the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired government was crushed by the Egyptian military. Nothing to do with arms deals, by any chance?

     It is obvious diplomacy has to be the first resort in the Syria problem, especially as the usual justification given for violent jihadism is the foreign policy of the west, with its repeated invasions, interference and killing. The UK and its government should not only learn from its recent actions in the Middle East, rather than repeat the mistakes, but also remember how peace finally came to Northern Ireland.