Three years on, the conflict in Syria is still raging. Our leaders cannot continue simply to look the other way

"The way that Western leaders have washed their hands of Syria, having decided that they don’t like rebels after all, is almost breathtakingly cynical because countless people who have nothing to do with al-Qa’ida or its affiliates remain locked into a revolt that has had the carpet pulled from under its feet."
There are some problems with this piece, the idea that Western leaders encouraged the Syrians to revolt, when they would have preferred some sort of coup, and the minute there was an armed revolt the story was that we didn't know who these people was, and had the Arab Spring turned sour with this turn to violence. And, "they forgot to factor in Plan B: what if the Assad regime declines to fold, or if a democratic revolt against the regime morphs into a sectarian crusade?" suggests that the West was serious about arming the rebels at some stage, that it wasn't the almost complete lack of arming that encouraged sectarian groups on the rebel side, omits the sectarian crusade already being spearheaded by Hezbollah to ethnically cleanse Sunni villages.
But the headline is at least shifting the debate onto the need to address the conflict, rather than to pretend that "intervention" is a route to an Iraq-style invasion. It would be nice if this gives solutions that empower the Syrian people a chance to be heard.