A BELEAGUERED PM is planning a new intervention in Syria in support of a US president beset by allegations of sexual and financial misconduct. For both, the latest use of chemical weapons is a welcome excuse to escape difficulties at home. The fact that any response will aggravate the human crisis in the region doesn’t bother them one jot. Nor will they be around to clear up the bloody mess they have created.

At the same time both May and Trump expect us to be so ill-informed or gullible that we’ll ignore the massive hypocrisy of any revenge attacks they are planning. Of course, any gas attack is vile and to use it on innocent civilians trapped in a war zone is unconscionable and was rightly outlawed by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. But that never stopped the USA killing 225,000 when they dropped atom bombs in Japan, or slaughtering 3.5 million Vietnamese often using the banned chemical, Agent Orange, or the British facilitating the sale of banned cluster-bombs to Saudi Arabia where they are used by the SAF to terrorise the Yemeni population and where, currently, the lives of 11.3 million children are endangered.

If such hypocrisy goes largely unremarked in Britain and America, be sure that it doesn’t go unnoticed in the Arab world. We may be a little way off the birth of a ‘Son of IS’ but such provocative actions will speed its coming and encourage loners to make individual attacks in Britain and America. We’re all potential targets.

JONATHAN SAUNDERS
Ramsay Road, Headington