Phew!

Jaw, jaw won out over war, war last night in the House of Commons, thankfully. We will not now be rushing headlong into a conflict in Syria.

But while the nation gives a great collective sigh of relief, Mr Assad may now feel it is OK to go ahead and deal with his opponents, that is to say, the majority of his own people, in whatever way he sees fit, though judging by the fire-bombing of a school yesterday, he's pretty much doing that already. So it is left to America, the World's policeman, to go in there and kick some serious butt. Will they go in though? One can only hope DC's reversal in Parliament may give them some pause for thought.

For me this is one of the most interesting aspects of the current situation. For once we have not (as I am certain Blair would) kow-towed to their wishes and co-operated as soon as they asked us to. For once the state has seen the "Special Relationship" for what it is: a fantasy existing only in the mind of Winston Churchill, who coined the phrase back in the 1940s and representing perhaps the ultimate in wishful thinking. We have not, surprisingly, even been issued with a dire warning that we'd better get on message, or else, as George Bush certainly did with Blair in 2002.

So the Middle East is a slightly safer place than it was yesterday- except for the ordinary citizens of Syria, of course. Now they know that they must fight alone (for I believe that America too will step back from the brink of another foreign adventure). Our hearts should go out to them. Just not our missiles.