Western leaders all welcomed the fall of Syria's repressive Assad regime. The same leaders who call the 12-month war of extermination against the Palestinians of Gaza, and the over 3,000 civilian deaths in Lebanon legitimate, because "Israel has the right to defend itself".

    Yes, Netanyahu is "their" brutal proxy; Assad of Syria was not. His brutality was no more, nor less, than that of successive apartheid Zionist regimes of Israel. Although, go further back in time and one finds Tony Blair, sitting in Damascus having tea with Bashar Assad and his wife...

    Indeed be it Starmer, Biden, Trump, Macron, or Scholtz, (or "King" Charles) they have no qualms over the actions of their chosen allies. As Assad was fleeing Damascus, Starmer was dining with the psychopathic Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. And he has just been awarded the hosting of the 2034 football World Cup!

    Never mind that workers building his futuristic "Neom City" in the desert are literally enslaved by contractors - under conditions far worse than any suffered by workers in other Gulf States, like that of British close ally, Qatar, or the UAE's Dubai.

    Those workers fleeing Africa's war zones as well as poverty-stricken Nepalese or South Indian workers are promised work on Saudi construction sites. But they are more likely to die, than earn a wage. Pay is withheld and they're forced to live in crowded, filthy conditions in the middle of nowhere, from which there is no escape.

    Bin Salman's regime routinely carries out public executions cutting heads off with swords. Despite supposed liberalisation of laws which designate women as second class - like allowing them to remove their hair covers, or to drive, any woman who tries to take the law at its word, is likely to become a target for repression, including disappearing into prison indefinitely. And as in other Gulf states, women aren't even the legal guardians of their own children.

    But never mind. If these backward feudal leaders "invest" and if they tie themselves to British or US imperialism rather than the Russians or Chinese, Starmer/Biden/Trump will gladly "waltz" with them into the sunset.

    Indeed this British government, along with its US partner in crime, consciously created the conditions for the fall of Assad by giving Netanyahu the blank cheque he always wanted to invade and bomb Gaza, Lebanon, and now Syria... And Iran next?

    With the help of Turkey's Erdogan (who has his own interests to serve) - the unlikely extremist militia, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, now "in power", will no doubt be expected to play the imperialists' game too...

    As for the Syrian people, they may have gained respite from Assad - but given the mayhem which imperialism has unleashed in the region, it is unlikely to last long.