Once upon a time a civil war was started by aggression against the people of in a divided state. It happened in a region of states incapable of honest co-operation. The war broke out at a sensitive time in history, where whole world was still unstable because of the deep economic crisis provoked some years previously by short-sighted selfish capitalists with their hub in Wall Street.
The totalitarian oriented side in that civil war (then the rebels), was immediately and effectively supported by like-minded powers.
The other side in the war (then the government), was much more divided between moderates and totalitarian minded people. It only received asistance from another totalitarian power and a mixed group of international volunteers, where the most effective were motivated by a totalitarian ideology. At several stages the situation beween the groups that supported the government approached open hostilities, something that strenghtened the radical elements and helped the common enemy by undermining general international support.
The well meaning moderate states of the region and the rest of the world could only agree on a policy of non-intervention, meaning no arms transfer to the ever more pressed moderate elements of the war. Even the neighbour state that had to support the flow of refugees maintained its stand-offish stance.
The result became worse than the well-meaning moderates could imagine, both for the warring nation and eventually for the non-interveners. Those who would not assist anybody because they knew that man – at least the civilian man – is inherently good and that war is created by tools …: the weapons.
History may not repeat itself, but man’s well meaning, short-sighted naïvity clearly does… as political and diplomatic man’s commitment to miracles rather that taking timely decisions when facing hard choices.
Then it was Spain… now Syria.