Another major Blair ally is Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is instructive that the Foreign Office claims this close official and personal relat… - Mark Curtis

March 20th marks the 15th anniversary of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq which plunged the country into a brutal occupation leading to sectarian civil war, terrorism and a death toll of hundreds of thousands. Yet in Britain the anniversary marks another year of impunity for the ministers who authorised the invasion. This lack of accountability for crimes committed abroad is a British disease with a very long history.

Britain sided with the Saudis and other Gulf regimes defining themselves as Islamic, to counter and overthrow secular nationalist regimes, principally in Egypt and Syria. The demise of "" left a vacuum that was eventually filled by jihadists.

I've tried to document in the updated version of Secret Affairs a chronology of Britain’s covert operations in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime. These began with the deployment of MI6 and other British covert forces in 2011, within a few months after demonstrations in Syria began challenging the regime, to which the Syrian regime responded with brute force and terrible violence.