The Syrian crisis is being called "the New Cold War"

The G8 meeting of some of the world's leading industrialised nations gets under way on Monday in Northern Ireland.

The agenda is meant to focus on economic issues, but this meeting will be dominated by the crisis over Syria.

France, Britain and the US have said they want to arm the rebels fighting the government of Bashar Al Assad, the Russians object and are providing weapons to Assad. On Sunday afternoon, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet to exchange views on the subject.

The Syrian crisis is being called the New Cold War - Russia and the West locked in a struggle for supremacy using surrogate forces. It's not that…yet.

But there is a danger that the two sides are locking themselves into fixed positions.

Russia has important strategic and military interests in Syria -including its only Mediterranean sea port - the Syrian city of Tartus.

It will not give them up easily. For their part the British and the French believe the Middle East is historically their sphere of influence - until the Americans usurped that position.

After all it was these two European powers that effectively created the modern order in the region.

Also key members of the British government are ideologically committed to a US neo-conservative view of the world - that it is the duty of the liberal West to bring democracy and the free market to the Arab world.

Removing Bashar Al Assad is another step in that direction - after the removal of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi .

At a press conference after their meeting, Prime Minister Cameron explained why he had helped to remove the EU embargo on supplying weapons to the rebels, blaming Assad for the crisis.

It is the onslaught he has inflicted on his own people which is the primary cause of the suffering, the humanitarian catastrophe and the death that we have seen.

The Syrian opposition have committed to a democratic pluralistic Syria that will respect minorities including Christians.

For his part President Putin, speaking through an interpreter said that Russia had acted in accordance with international law, and that there was blood on the hands of both sides, and hoped that progress can be made at the G8 Meeting.

With the military tide seemingly flowing on the government's side, the Russians feel that the recent claims Assad's forces have been using chemical weapons, is an excuse by the three western powers to intervene on behalf of the rebels. The Russians challenge the evidence by pointing out a simple fact --- those in favour of invading Iraq used the same arguments on weapons of mass destruction……and the word, knows the truth of those claims.