Politics & Power Quote by William Hague

Hague’s sentence is diplomacy trying to sound like moral clarity, and the tension is the point. By calling the crackdown “appalling” and “senseless,” he frames the Assad regime’s violence as not just brutal but strategically stupid: repression that “erode[s] legitimacy” and breeds “resentment.” That’s a political diagnosis disguised as condemnation, built to travel well in headlines and parliamentary minutes.

The subtext is institutional. “We witnessed” doesn’t mean the UK literally watched; it signals that the EU (and its information apparatus) is paying attention, collecting evidence, keeping a ledger. The dates anchor the claim in a specific episode (Hama, late July 2011, as the Syrian uprising escalated), preempting the regime’s usual fog of denial. Naming Hama matters, too: the city carries the ghost of 1982, when another Assad crushed dissent there. Hague is invoking a historical rhyme without saying it out loud.

The conditional structure does the heavy lifting. “In the absence of” an end to violence and “a genuine process” of reform, sanctions will continue. That’s coercion packaged as choice: the regime can stop the pain, but only by meeting terms the EU defines. “Genuine” is doing extra work, leaving room to reject cosmetic concessions while keeping the EU’s stance flexible.

It’s also aimed inward, at European publics and partners: a promise of action that is forceful enough to signal values, cautious enough to avoid committing to military escalation. Sanctions become the tool of last resort and first response, a way to be seen doing something without pretending it will end the killing tomorrow.