In the war on terrorism, only al-Qa'ida thrives

"Of course, the hypocrisy does not end there. For all his triumphalism over the turnout in Syria, Assad's way of dealing with parts of Syria not under his control is to shell them and drop barrel bombs on them. Nor is the opposition much better when it comes to targeting civilians, except that its means of destruction are much less than that of the state."
The hypocrisy starts here. The opposition hasn't engaged in the mass murder of civilians. Anyone not looking at the conflict through thick ideological glasses can see the difference. But Assad is an official enemy of the West , so his crimes could only be an excuse for western crimes, so can't be that bad.
"A reporter in Aleppo, who writes under the name of Edward Dark for the online magazine al-Monitor, mentions a case that "clearly illustrates the ludicrous nature of this inhumane conflict that happened to the Sheikh Maksud neighbourhood in Aleppo". He relates how, when this district was held by Assad's forces, it was regularly shelled by the rebels who said it was full of pro-government militiamen. When the rebels stormed and captured Sheikh Maksud in March 2013, it was the Syrian army that blazed away indiscriminately into the civilian houses that were still standing."
The opposition tried to kill the shabiha, the murder and rape gangs that have filled the gaps in Assad's terror, the Syrian Army targeted civilian dwellings. I don't see the equivalence.
"The Syrian war has turned into a Syrian version of the Thirty Years War in Germany four centuries ago. Too many conflicts and too many players have become involved for any peace terms to be acceptable to all."
Assad goes, major problem solved. ignoring that the demand of the revolution is for an end to Assad's police state, that he clears civilian areas because there can be no compromise on that demand, is of no consequence to Cockburn.
"Saudi Arabia and Qatar are arming and training a new "moderate military opposition" that will supposedly fight Assad and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) along with other al-Qa'ida-type groups. But it is not clear that the "moderate" military opposition really exists except as tightly controlled cats' paws of foreign powers."
It is not clear to Cockburn because he has been denying that there are any revolutionary forces in Syria, or pretending that those out of arms give no support to those that fight Assad. The fewer the strings on arms supplies the better, the credit for their supply inevitable, but this seems much more like a fear that this will happen than a fear it will fail. It is the flipside of the assumption that any weapons will end up with al-Qaida, how anti-aircraft weapons placed in the hands of those determined to protect Syria from Assad will remain hamstrung or get out of control I really can't see, and all seems like an excuse to get away from the lack of support being the cause of the Syrian disaster.
"So long as the Syrian civil war continues, it benefits groups such as Isis, which wants to create its own state and not just get rid of Assad, because fanatical armed groups, with fighters prepared to be killed, always benefit from conflict. By the same token, moderates lose out or are marginalised as the situation becomes more and more militarised and Syrian public opinion counts for little."
Hypocrite. He doesn't care about the vast majority of Syrians who want Assad out.