Apostles of a war without end

This piece of mine appears in the Morning Star. 

The West stepped up its intervention in the Syrian civil war this week, with the United States formally recognising the rebel coalition as "the legitimate representative" of the Syrian people.
As with France and Britain before it this is presented as an entirely reactive step, a response to events on the ground in Syria.

The truth is rather different.

After the end of the cold war many hoped we'd be entering a new era of peace and international co-operation.

Nato could be disbanded, our nuclear weapons could go and the money saved - the so-called "peace dividend" - could be spent on alleviating poverty.

But Western rulers had other ideas. The fall of the Soviet Union left a terrible power vacuum as there was no longer any real check on Western imperialism.

You can read the whole article here.