Speaking during a visit to Moscow yesterday, Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said that foreign intervention in the civil war would cause the conflict to spread to other countries in the region.

Out of the thousands of wrongs that Syria has perpetrated or spoken, this is one where it is right. Jamil warned the United States that military intervention in Syria could lead to regional turmoil.

The comments came a day after President Barack Obama said the US would reconsider its opposition to military involvement in the Syrian civil war if Bashar al-Assad’s government deploys or uses chemical or biological weapons, describing it as a “red line” for the United States.

Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil called Obama’s statements “propagandistic threats” made in connection with the US presidential election. But Jamil also said the comments indicate that the West is looking for a pretext to intervene militarily. He insisted that such intervention would be “impossible” because it would cause the civil war to spread to other countries in the region. “Those who are contemplating this evidently want to see the crisis expand beyond Syria’s borders,” Jamil said.

The conflict already has spilled over into neighbouring Lebanon, where sectarian tensions have risen. And this is precisely why Syria is right in what it is saying. Regardless of what morality commands that we should do – it was precisely the oppression of the al-Assad dynasty, that kept things in check, in terms of sectarian tensions in the Middle East.

To put it into context, the al-Assad clan is a minority Alawite Muslim sect, while the vast majority of the rebels are Sunni Muslims. Even as things stand, fighting has spilled over into neighbouring Lebanon for precisely that reason – sectarianism.

Syria’s oppressive regime kept sectarian elements in check – especially in terms of Israel, after the drubbing that the Muslim nation suffered at the hands of the Israelis in the Six-Day War and again in the Yom Kippur War. Syria realised that it could not outgun the vastly superior (though smaller) Israeli Armed Forces and a comfortable stalemate settled in as a result.

What is, however, debatable, is whether the Syrian Free Army will disintegrate into faction militias (as has happened in Libya) following the inevitable fall of the regime.

Put plainly, it is too late for the West to interfere. If the west wanted to intervene, it should have done so at the start of the conflict. Refusal to do so will only fuel the eventual resentment of the Sunni uprising. If sectarian tensions continue to rise, we could see the conflict spill over into Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq (which also has a Shia Muslim population) and even, perhaps, Egypt.

We could even see a re-drawing of national borders as Muslims flock to one part of the region or another to join their sectarian brothers and sisters. Nations could literally fall apart and reform. And once that happens, attention will turn to Israel. We have seen that most of the revolutions have led to a rise of Islamification and that also breeds fundamentalism. Israel will not hold back, it will defend itself. The US has said that it has drawn a red-line, in that it will not accept the use of chemical and biological weapons. Gaddafi did not use his stockpile. Will al-Assad? Time will tell.