Evening Standard comment: The dilemma over arming Syria’s rebels

The Cabinet is reportedly split over the Prime Minister’s apparent growing willingness to arm the Syrian rebels. A cross-party group of MPs adds to the pressure with a motion calling for a vote before any weapons are sent. But Foreign Secretary William Hague succeeded in persuading EU ministers to lift the arms embargo.

Whatever the practicalities, the Government’s stance is motivated by genuine moral indignation. It seems intolerable not to engage with a conflict that has cost more than 80,000 Syrian lives and caused the displacement of more than 1.5 million people. The conflict has been characterised by gruesome atrocities and it seems likely that the regime has used chemical weapons. The Government hopes that by backing the rebels it can ensure Islamist radicals within the opposition are marginalised and that President Assad feels pressurised into making concessions.

Yet if we intervene to the extent of actively arming the rebels, we may make things worse. This is not Bosnia, where the legitimate Bosnian government’s army was handicapped by a want of weapons while Serb forces were well armed. The Syrian opposition is a mixed bag: there are growing extremist elements within its forces, including at least one group allied to al Qaeda. We cannot be sure that arms supplied to the Free Syrian Army would not end up with fundamentalists on the same side. President Assad is supported by Iran, which is behind the Hezbollah fighters recently active in the siege of Qasair, but the rebels have the support of Saudi Arabia. This conflict is anything but clear-cut.

Russia and the US, backed by the UN, are organising a peace conference. It says much about the chaotic state of the Syrian opposition that it is finding it hard to produce a delegation that could attend. As for President Assad, his refusal to entertain any outcome that would involve him stepping down means an agreed solution is very hard to envisage. Yet a peace deal on the lines originally suggested by the UN and Arab League envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, remains the best solution we can hope for. We can help promote it by putting what pressure we can on Turkey and Saudi Arabia to encourage the rebels to participate, and on Russia to use its best offices with the regime. It’s not ideal but it may be the best we can do.

Tony Travers, chair of the Mayor’s London Finance Commission, is to lobby the political parties to provide more financial devolution for London in their election manifestos. The Commission wants City Hall to have more control of property taxes, including stamp duty, council tax and some rates.

Professor Travers is right. London contributes more to the Exchequer than it gets back in spending. Greater autonomy is in keeping with all parties’ commitments to greater localism; keeping property taxes in particular could allow for an ambitious new programme of housebuilding. Scotland and Wales are moving towards greater revenue-raising as well as spending powers; it seems only fair that London, more economically important than both combined, should have greater financial autonomy.

A remarkable assembly of thespians is to take part in the Readathon in Trafalgar Square organised by this paper as part of the Get Reading Festival this summer. It’s a reminder that literacy is about reading aloud and in company as well as alone: it should be inspirational.