If you are a dutiful western television viewer, you might think that moderate, amphetamine-fueled foreign fighters only recently began to cry out for democracy in Syria. But you are dreadfully mistaken. Syria has demanded freedom from its oppressive legitimate leaders for more than fifty years. According to a 2003 report in the Guardian, Syria has been on Democracy's "to-do list" for a long-ass time! Check this out:

Newly discovered documents show how in 1957 Harold Macmillan and President Dwight Eisenhower approved a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion by Syria's pro-western neighbours, and then to "eliminate" the most influential triumvirate in Damascus. The world's most accomplished democracy-spreaders ... The report said that once the necessary degree of fear had been created, frontier incidents and border clashes would be staged to provide a pretext for Iraqi and Jordanian military intervention. Syria had to be "made to appear as the sponsor of plots, sabotage and violence directed against neighbouring governments," the report says. "CIA and SIS should use their capabilities in both the psychological and action fields to augment tension." That meant operations in Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon, taking the form of "sabotage, national conspiracies and various strong-arm activities" to be blamed on Damascus. The plan called for funding of a "Free Syria Committee", and the arming of "political factions with paramilitary or other actionist capabilities" within Syria. The CIA and MI6 would instigate internal uprisings, for instance by the Druze in the south, help to free political prisoners held in the Mezze prison, and stir up the Muslim Brotherhood in Damascus.

Ah, history. In 1957, it was PG-13 "border clashes". Now we have "government chemical weapons attacks against orphans", which, despite whatever evidence Bellingcat found on Facebook, have been completely debunked, and by actual experts. Instead of the "Free Syria Committee", we now have the "Free Syrian Army". Oh, and we saved the best for last. Here's why the 1957 plan fell apart:

The plan was never used, chiefly because Syria's Arab neighbours could not be persuaded to take action and an attack from Turkey alone was thought to be unacceptable.

Acceptable in 2015, though! Good heavens, nothing changes.

Our current nightmare is nothing more than a poorly-conceived lie gathering dust in a CIA archive.