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Boris Johnson [id=80-j4]. Assad Apologists.

[Author = Kester Ratcliff, Original Source = https://archive.fo/VQXiq]

[Posted & Extensively Amended by Lara Keller 22/9/18]

[Range of Assadist opinion see here.]

Perhaps only accidentally pro-Assad due to his habitual general impulsive carelessness. Boris Johnson was UK Foreign Minister from 2016 till July 2018. He made countless statements condemning Assad atrocities, while using the cover of caution to do nothing to aid the unequal struggle of Syrians to remove Assad. Instead the UK focused on much needed humanitarian aid.  UK policy changed dramatically after Russian direct intervention, the retaking of Eastern Aleppo and the election of the US president Donald Trump. Johnson consistently favored active intervention against ISIS. In 2015 Boris Johnson voted with the government, on a vote it subsequently lost, for intervention against Assad. He tempered this vote with skepticism about the PM's claim of 70,000 non-extremist forces ready to fight Assad.

In March 2016 after the fall of Palmyra from ISIS to the Assad Regime, Kyle Orton wrote ".... 'Hooray', says Boris Johnson on the conquest of Palmyra by the army of Bashar al-Assad and Iranian-controlled Shi'a jihadists under the cover of Russian airstrikes. 'Bravo',he adds. As Johnson phrases it: 'no matter how repulsive the Assad regime may be—and it is—their opponents in [IS] are far, far worse'......In the wake of the Brussels attack, the capture of Palmyra was narratively perfect for the Assad regime. But to accept the regime’s claim that it is a bulwark against terrorism, rather than its generator, is to collaborate in a falsehood. It would be helpful if prominent elected officials in the West did not assist the Assad regime in disseminating propaganda.”

In April 2018 Boris Johnson appeared on a The "Andrew Marr" BBC news opinion show  to argue that US-UK-France very limited air strikes (in response to an Assad Regime chemical attack on Douma on the 7/4/18)  on Assad Regime's chemical weapons facilities were justified: “ 'There’s one overwhelming reason why this was the right thing to do, and that is to deter the use of chemical weapons, not just by the Assad regime but around the world', .... Asked how the UK would respond to fresh chemical weapons attacks, he said: 'With allies, we would study what the options were.' [Corbyn calls for 'war powers act' as check on military intervention, UK Guardian, 15/4/18]

[ LK: Boris Johnson has accepted and promoted the propaganda of the Assad Regime that the Syrian Oppposition are extremist terrorists, while also condemning the atrocities of the regime's political genocide in Syria. This formula together with the focus on humanitarian aid enables him to be and look concerned, while ensuring his government did and does nothing to remove Assad, while the Assad regime grows stronger and the cost of doing anything increases. Boris Johnson is ultimately an apologist for doing nothing - even though not quite consistent even in this - which favors Assad. ]

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