{"id":179973,"date":"2015-09-09T20:59:20","date_gmt":"2015-09-09T20:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/more-incoherence-in-syria-policy\/"},"modified":"2015-09-09T20:59:20","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T20:59:20","slug":"more-incoherence-in-syria-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/more-incoherence-in-syria-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"More Incoherence in Syria Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"289.14963711399\">\n<p>Australia is the latest U.S. ally to join the bombing campaigns against Islamic State militants inside Syria, but the incoherence of the strategy is underscored by Washington\u2019s continuing refusal to negotiate seriously with the Syrian government about a realistic political settlement of the war, writes Greg Maybury.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-15838\"\/>By Greg Maybury<\/p>\n<p>As expected, Australia\u2019s Prime Minister Tony Abbott <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/federal-politics\/political-news\/abbott-government-agrees-to-resettle-12000-syrian-refugees-in-australia-20150909-gjibqz.html\"><u>announced a decision<\/u><\/a> by the government to participate in airstrikes on ISIS strongholds inside Syria. But what was less expected was the decision\u00a0<em>\u2013<\/em>\u00a0taken at the same Cabinet meeting and announced at the same press conference\u00a0<em>\u2013<\/em>\u00a0to accept an additional 12,000 Syrian refugees, along with spending $A44 million supplying 240,000 refugees with \u201ccash, food, water and blankets\u201d in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.<\/p>\n<p>The cost to Australia of accepting these additional refugees\u00a0<em>\u2013<\/em>\u00a0almost doubling the projected intake for the year\u00a0<em>\u2013<\/em>\u00a0has been estimated at around $A700m over the next four years.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15843\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" readability=\"32\"><a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/img_TonyAbbottProfile.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15843\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif?55ac53\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/img_TonyAbbottProfile.jpg\" alt=\"Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.\" width=\"200\" height=\"254\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15843\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/img_TonyAbbottProfile.jpg\" alt=\"Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.\" width=\"200\" height=\"254\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u2039\u00e2\u20ac\u2039To be sure the decision to take in the extra refugees and provide additional humanitarian support was welcomed by most Australians\u00a0<em>\u2013<\/em>\u00a0even many of those who hitherto might have been anti-immigration or opposed to such largesse on purely economic grounds\u00a0<em>\u2013<\/em>\u00a0and it has bi-partisan support. The decision however to join the bombing fray may not be as enthusiastically received.<\/p>\n<p>In response to Abbott\u2019s declaration\u00a0<em>\u2013<\/em>\u00a0made presumably to justify the decision and offset anticipated criticism\u00a0<em>\u2013<\/em>\u00a0that the legal basis for the air strikes is \u201cthe collective self-defense of Iraq,\u201d Independent MP Andrew Wilkie said dropping bombs on Syria would be \u201cillegal, ineffective and dangerous\u201d. Regardless, Wilkie \u00e2\u20ac\u2039almost certainly\u00a0will be echoing what is likely to be the reaction of a significant number of Australians once the reality of the decision takes root in the public consciousness\u00a0<em>\u2013<\/em>\u00a0especially in the wake of the decision to accept the increased refugee intake.<\/p>\n<p>Wilkie added the following: \u201cThese air strikes just won\u2019t work. You can\u2019t defeat an unconventional enemy like Islamic State by dropping bombs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even before Abbot\u2019s&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/09\/09\/more-incoherence-in-syria-policy\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australia is the latest U.S. ally to join the bombing campaigns against Islamic State militants inside Syria, but the incoherence of the strategy is underscored by Washington\u2019s continuing refusal to negotiate seriously with the Syrian government about a realistic political settlement of the war, writes Greg Maybury. By Greg Maybury As expected, Australia\u2019s Prime Minister [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-179973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}