The question on the mind of almost everyone who has followed the horror in Syria as it has unfolded over the past two years is, “What we can do?” The short answer, unfortunately, is not much.
The attack was certainly a slap in the face to Assad, but was mainly intended to increase chaos in the Arab world.
Conversation on the streets of Beirut since the bombing in October has a familiar vocabulary, one reminiscent of 2005 when Rafic Hariri was assassinated.
Almost 18 months after the onset of popular democratic protests, the Syrian revolution increasingly resembles a bloody marathon with no clear finish line on the horizon. But as Syrian society slowly disintegrates, non-aligned states from the developing world may show the way forward to a diplomatic resolution.
What has been largely been reported as a civil war in Syria is, in fact, no such thing. In reality, Syria is a geopolitical battleground for rival foreign powers – with the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Gulf regimes, and Israel on one side and Russia, China, and Iran on the other.
Syrian rebels have been fighting Bashar al-Assad’s forces for nearly a year and a half in a conflict that has caused 20,000 deaths. As the world watches in horror, much confusion remains about the nature of the rebel troops, the identity of the regime’s supporters, and what actions — if any — should be taken by the rest of the world.