Syria: The question of ulterios motives

Yesterday on the news here in Sweden the reporter asked the former Swedish ambassador in Russia if he thinks that Russia have ulterior motives when they keep on putting in their veto in the Security Council. Interestingly enough no one has asked if the US/UK/France trio have ulterior motives for wanting to use military force in Syria. How come we also assume and expect "the Other" to have ulterior motives while "we" are always doing the correct and good thing?

Once again, as with so many aspects of international (and national!) politics Edward Said's concept of "the Other" can be applied. It's one of my favourite concepts in international relations theory. And especially the aspect of "Othering", how "we" always create an image of "the Other" as someone bad and evil and wrong in order to illustrate that we are all things opposite. I wrote my entire masters thesis around that concept. It is applicable to so many situations, it's a shame it doesn't get more recognition.

And also, how come if the West has ulterior motives it's okay because at least it's "for a good cause"? "Yes, we might be doing for other reasons, but the result will still be good for everyone, so why not?" The answer to that is: BECAUSE HISTORY PROVES IT NEVER TURNS OUT RIGHT! It is getting increasingly difficult to find examples of successful US led, so-called, interventions. It is incredibly difficult to measure 'success' in this case. But still. The list of dragged out and failed wars are much much longer than any that can be said to be successful.

So my tiny word of wisdom? I think Syria needs to be punished. But when a state has refused to sign up to international conventions, how are they meant to be punished? If anyone decides to go in militarily, I think we may have a huge catastrophe on our hands. I think we need to be careful. Very, very careful.