British Army Chief: Deploying Troops to Syria Being Constantly Considered

Insists Deployment Would Be 'Limited'

In an interview today with BBC1, British Army Chief of Staff General Sir David Richards said that the military is “continually” working on different plans for military intervention in Syria, raising the prospect of direct British military involvement.

Sir David suggested that the primary goal right now of British foreign policy was to keep the Syrian Civil War from spilling across any borders, so the most likely deployments would be along the Syrian border as a sort of quarantining measure.

They might deploy inside Syria, however, nominally on humanitarian grounds. He insisted any deployment would be “limited” and that the military would be “very cautious” about getting too deeply involved in the ugly civil war.

The general also discussed the possibility of attacking Iran, saying that so long as Prime Minister David Cameron keeps “all options” on the table related to Iran that the military is obliged to prepare for the possibility he’s going to up and order an attack some day. Sir David seemed even less interested in this war, however, saying an attack on Iran was “fraught with risk.”

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.