Ideological groups generate momentum behind some narrative, as I've said before I think AQ's was that the West wanted to occupy the Mid East, and the ISIL is their particular brand of Islam is the only allowable one. The Assad regime is just a dictatorial regime who will use force to keep control until some other force takes it, be it external, internal or just mortality itself. Ideally I guess there would be a capability to resist aggression for territorial expansion between neighbours in keeping world peace, the UN might be a rudimentary framework but I'm unsure if this would ever work if developed, and getting involved in other peoples wars brings with it a lot of problems and feeds contrived narratives which foster these little groups and cells. The thing is little wars tend to spill over in a globalised society, as lots of different types of interests cross national boundaries. It's been a long time since nation's were separate isolated entities.
So when a groups narrative is disproven, the groups momentum dies and the group usually tears itself apart trying to transform into something that can again have momentum.
When AQ's narrative was disproven by the West leaving Iraq to self rule we saw the democratic movement called the Arab Spring try to spring into existence.
Disproving the ISIL narrative is nearly impossible because its basically a suicidal death cult.
Assad is not an ideological group so there is nothing to disprove!
But there are a few big problems in the Mid East, and each one is different. The Palestinian struggle tends to be ideological in a way, with the anti-Israel efforts generally held together behind an idea that Israel belongs to them... the Sunni-Shia divide would take someone with a better knowledge of Islam to answer them me to work out its ideological weakness.
One thing in common with them all is that conflict itself creates a new momentum of revenge which can conveniently sit alongside the struggle of one or both sides to a conflict - but is winning always the best outcome? Probably not, but sometimes it could be a requirement depending on ones beliefs. So what beliefs are more right?
I guess the question one has to ask themselves is where should the line in the sand be when one group tries to justify the use of force to exert its will over others?
If we needed a foundation set of beliefs, I think the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
is a good place to start for a global community to use to define what is and what is not acceptable in behaviour with others. But this has to be see in the correct context of intention rather then applied to individual actions, as actions require a greater degree of analysis to understand the circumstances to assess conduct in regards to both the circumstances and intention. So firstly how does a groups intentions measure up, and secondly how does their conduct adhere to that intention when confronted with complex circumstances. It all gets complicated
:huh:
