Wishful thinking

Published on 21/01/2013 00:00

WITh regards to your reports on the siege at the In Amenas gas 
facility in Algeria, it is now clear the Arab Spring was an example of western wishful thinking and, far from being “transformed by democracy”, the Islamic Crescent is ablaze from end to end.

Pakistan is out of control, 
Afghanistan is a mess, Iran is 
proto-nuclear, the Yemen, Iraq and Libya are unstable, Jordan and the Gulf are little better, and Syria is in a civil war. The post-revolutionary regimes in Egypt and Tunisia are failing while, on the southern flank, the killing fields of the Maghreb are seething with terrorists and armed nomads.

The only surprise about the 
assault on BP’s desert facility was that it came as a surprise in view of the West’s poisonous Libyan intervention and recent meddling in Mali.

Algeria could not risk linking itself to the West by asking for military back-up in a hostage crisis, so the only course of action was its crude and bloody unilateral operation.

Dr John Cameron

Howard Place, 
St Andrews, Fife