member of the U.K. parliament named George Galloway responded tothe bizarremachete attack in London,which some reports say killed a British soldier, with a quip onTwitter about U.K. foreign policy. “This sickening atrocity inLondon is exactly what we are paying the same kind of people to do inSyria,” hewrote,provoking immediate controversy.Galloway,who opposes his country’s decision to support some rebel groups inSyria, seems to be arguing that those rebels are akin to the macheteattackers. While it’s not clear why the two men killed a third inthe London neighborhood of Woolwich, one of them later said, withblood still on his hands, “The only reasons we have done this isbecause Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eyefor an eye a tooth for tooth.”Sincemaking his comment, Galloway has been embroiled in a number ofarguments on Twitter over the statement. He has dug in, sayingthatboth Syrian rebels and the Woolwich attackers are “Al Qaedafollowers. Sickening murderers. The kind we arm and pay for inSyria.” When one Twitter user responded, “I don’t think we goup to random people, run them over, then behead them,” Gallowayshotback,“no, we pay Al Qaeda to do so. In Syria.”Westerngovernments have indeed worried that funding intended for moderateSyrian rebel groups might end up in the hands of extremists, such asthe al-Qaeda-allied group Jabhat al-Nusra. And some rebels havecommitted atrocities. Still, it seems a stretch to suggest that theU.K. government is paying Syrian opposition groups specifically tokill civilians or that it is seeking to fund al-Qaeda affiliates.Gallowayhas a history of controversial remarks on U.K. foreign policy in theMiddle East. In 2003, as the Iraq War divided U.K. politics, Gallowaywas formerlyexpelled from the Labor Partyon charges of “inciting Arabs to fight British troops” (the weirdwording of that will be clearer in a moment) and “inciting Britishtroops to defy orders.” Galloway made his offending statements onAbu Dhabi TV, when he urged British troops to disobey “illegalorders,” which he apparently saw as applying to the entire war, andseemed to suggest that neighboring Middle Eastern states should cometo Iraq’s defense. “Why don’t Arabs do something for theIraqis?” he asked. “Where are the Arab armies? We wonder when theArab leaders wake up? When are they going to stand by the Iraqipeople?”He’salsoreferred toSyrian President Bashar al-Assad’s governmentas “the last castle of Arab dignity.”Ifyou take the time to think you will realize that the Palestinianissue, the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, the West's reluctance tochange Iranian policy, and a new form of Islamic conservatism that ispopular in the Gulf countries which lives by the doctrine of"Islamis perfect, but Muslims are not"; all of these are intertwinedin creating the storm we see brewing in the Middle East.