Belarus, encroached between Russia and NATO member states.
in “STRATFOR” at www.stratfor.com
Back in 2011, a group of countries constituted what they called “The Friends of Libya”. It was inaugurated by 27 nations that eventually grew to a peak of 39 countries. In spite of the growth, the group has been basically useless.
In 2012, France launched the so-called “Friends of Syria” group with a strong start of 70 countries, which would peak at 114 nations on 12th December 2012 at a conference in Marrakech. However, currently, the number of members has shrunk to as few as 13 states.
In 2020, last month to be precise, I read in an article the expression “friends of Belarus”, supposedly an array of European and Western nations that should help and support the Slavic nation.
As I have written a post back in May 2012, “The Friends of Syria” (http://tempos-interessantes.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-friends-of-syria.html ), the constitution of these groups, borders on the ridiculous and the absence of useful outcomes displays their uselessness.
If one looks at the Libyan War, the alleged Friends of Libya, France and the United States, two of the most relevant friends, bear the major responsibility for the political, military, social and economic destruction of Libya, whose chaotic state still endures 9 years later.
Turning to Syria, the quick and sharp fall in the numbers of alleged Friends of Syria, speaks volumes on the level of true friendship for Syria. Of the remaining friends, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Canada and Egypt have long left and forgot the friendliness; Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, war contributors, have also gradually quit after Russia’s intervention; Jordan just holds to her side of the Syrian border; finally, there are the United States and Turkey; the former has mostly given up on Syria and certainly has very few friends left on the ground; as for Turkey, her supposed friendship is a tasteless joke, given that Ankara has been one of the most vicious enemies of Syria.
In the case of Belarus, there is no organised friendly group, but the Kumbaya spirit seems to have stuck. In the article published on Carnegie Endowment, the author calls for the intervention of the friends of Belarus to help make her a “normal country”. Since there are all kinds of countries across the world, one has to assume that this particular concept of a normal country corresponds to the writer’s preference rather than a hypothetical normalcy.
These Groups of Friends, be them of Libya, Syria, Belarus, or whoever, are a farce. Their members are not intrinsically friends of the subject country, they are just friends of themselves and their alleged friendship is a means to pursue their own ends, i.e., their self-interest. France, Italy and Turkey wanted better and bigger access to Libya’s oil. In Syria, everyone wanted to prop up their own proxies on the ground and, in the case of Turkey, setting off to occupy/conquer chunks of Syrian territory in the north. In Belarus, the not-named friends just want to format the country to their own image and include it in their area of influence, and, simultaneously, trying a sting at Russia.
It is thus high time to drop the hypocrisy of friendship and assume that most countries, most of the times, pursue their national interest above all else.
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