US aims to seek pretext for Syria intervention

BEIJING - Once again, Western powers are digging deep for excuses to intervene militarily in another conflict-torn Middle East country, as US President Barack Obama warned Monday that the use of chemical weapons by Syria's government would change his "calculus."

With the hypocritical talks of eliminating weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and protecting civilians in Libya still ringing in the ears, such "red line" threats seem to have almost become a signal for the United States and some of its Western allies to sharpen their weapons before exercising interventionism.

The world should stay vigilant that these dangerously irresponsible remarks would do nothing but effectively escalate the current bloody situation in Syria and gravely tarnish the prospects of settling Syria's 17-month-old crisis through political means.

It is true that the UN and Arab League-led mediation efforts on the ground have yet to yield satisfactory results to broker a ceasefire between government troops and armed rebels in Syria.

However, when continuous radicalism-fueled roadside bomb attacks, along with heartrending poverty and chaos, have nearly killed the hopes for stability and prosperity in Somalia, Iraq and Libya, nations that have suffered West-led military interventions, foreign crusades would simply incur even more violence, hostilities and hatred in Syria.

Apart from being ineffective to bring real peace, military interventions by the United States and its Western partners are always interests-driven and highly selective.

It is not difficult to find that, under the disguise of humanitarianism, the United States has always tried to smash governments it considers as threats to its so-called national interests and relentlessly replace them with those that are Washington-friendly.

That easily explains why both Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who once worked closely with the United States, were later depicted as brutal dictators with the people's blood dipping through their fingers.

Right now, as conflicts between government troops and rebel forces still rage in Syria, nations around the world should continue to build on the progress that has been achieved by outgoing international envoy Kofi Annan and his team.

Any attempt to scrap the chances for a political settlement and to turn Syria into the next testing ground for Western weapons must be guarded against and ruled out.

China, being acutely aware of the harm of foreign interventions, has always stood firmly against them and supported the political settlement of all crises.

Thus, the Chinese government is keen to continue working with the international community to back UN-backed negotiations aimed at bringing real and lasting peace to Syria.