Скачать или смотреть Political analyst on effects of UK govt defeat in Syria vote on Cameron and UK's international stand

(30 Aug 2013) A British academic on Friday played down fears of long-term damage to US-UK relations, after Britain's Parliament rejected military action in Syria in a stunning late night vote.
British Prime Minister David Cameron lost a vote endorsing military action against Syria by 13 votes on Thursday night - a stunning defeat that will almost guarantee that Britain plays no direct role in any US attack on President Bashar Assad's government.
The defeat was as dramatic as it was unexpected.
At the start of the week, Cameron had seemed poised to join US President Barack Obama in possible military action against Assad after allegations of a chemical weapons attack near Damascus last week. The Syrian opposition blame Assad for the attack, whereas the Syrian government level the blame at "terrorist" gangs.
Professor Tony Travers, from the London School of Economic, said that while it was unlikely Obama would be "particularly happy" at the outcome of the vote in London, there have been examples in the past when the US and the UK haven't worked together.
"There are occasions when Britain and America, which have this long-established relationship, don't work together," Travers said, citing the war in Vietnam as an example.
"Obviously the British Prime Minister David Cameron in losing this vote in parliament has been damaged, there's no question in the short-term it'll be seen as undermining his authority and indeed boosting the authority of the opposition leader Ed Miliband," Travers added.
Cameron is being seen as having grievously misread the British appetite for a war in the Middle East.
This follows bloody, inconclusive engagements in Afghanistan and, particularly, Iraq, where the British public felt misled and rushed to war by faulty intelligence linking Saddam Hussein to weapons of mass destruction.
A humbled Cameron now finds himself rebuked by Parliament - a setback so rare that some historians say they have to look back more than two centuries to find a similar defeat over a vital matter of war and peace.
Travers says the recent events could indicate a more "isolationist" UK in the future.
"You can't tell this one or two days after, but it may signal a further step back of Britain from a world role, something it's been moving away from over a very long period now," he said.
Travers conceded that Cameron's position was not helped by the legacy of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led the UK into the war in Iraq on the back of faulty intelligence.
"Tony Blair's highly controversial decision to take Britain into Iraq alongside George W. Bush, without doubt has cast a shadow over the decision-making in parliament in the last 24 hours," he said.
"There's no doubt Iraq does have an implication and a profound impact on the way both politicians and the people think in Britain now," he added.

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