This blog has consistently lent towards the pragmatic approach of the Russians and away from the Western enthusiastic support of unidentified rebel factions whose post Assad agenda is far from obvious and whose vision of a new Syria is far from clear. The point of contention has been principally whether talks should take place with Assad in place or whether he has to go first. The nature of Syria is that if the Assad regime collapses, so will the state. This cannot be a good thing for the people of Syria, nor indeed for the people of Israel, who have managed a long era of peaceful stand-off with a regime with which they had a degree of mutual understanding.
There have been a string of foreign policy failures of western diplomacy, where even force has failed to yield an outcome remotely similar to the promise at the outset. Iraq and Afghanistan are the obvious disasters, but Libya is by no means out of the woods and without Gaddafi’s control, all sorts of factions have begun to destabilise Mali and Algeria. Tunisia seems to have problems and Egypt is a mess, even if there may be less repression of opposition. If the price for that is a dysfunctional state and a ruined economy, not every citizen thinks it is a price worth paying.
In Syria, a state invented after the first world war with little to no regard for tribe or tradition, none in the West has a clue what is going to happen or how big the calamity its muddled and impractical policy will encourage. As the fighting becomes ever more intense, the fabric of the country and the cohesion of its communities is being destroyed, to the point where there will be no coherent government of a territory in turmoil, which will be any event ungovernable. That will lead to a humanitarian disaster greater than any thus far seen in the region.
There is no certainty that anything can now stop the worst possible scenario unfolding to expose a grisly tableau of human anguish. The only glimmer of hope is for Russia and the West to begin to see eye to eye and talk in unison about realistic ways of halting the fighting. For the moment it may be necessary to talk to the Assad government in which Assad himself wields very little power. If that is the price of improvement in the toll of human suffering it should sensibly be paid. Remember the little children. As if they were your own.