Criticism of his crackdown was restrained at first, partly because of fears that a collapse of Assad's minority Alawite rule might lead to sectarian conflict in the majority Sunni state, and because Washington had hoped to loosen Syria's alliance with Iran and promote a peace deal with Israel.
Arab states, some of them putting down protests on their own soil, also refrained from criticising Assad, though the 22-member Arab League said Tuesday pro-democracy demonstrators across the region "deserve support, not bullets."
Yes, for the West the hope of making a grand bargain with the fiend outweighs the fears of what happens if his repression fails. But this is nothing new.
The muted response from the leaders of the Arab world--largely Sunni--to Assad's bloody repression is fascinating. Recall that when we overthrew Saddam in Iraq, the excuse for the Arab world's rejection of the new government was that the Arab states preferred the stability of a minority Sunni Arab government over the uncertainty of what a majority-Shia government might do.
Yet in Syria, Sunni Arab rulers seem to prefer the continued stability of a Shia-offshoot (Alawite) minority ruling over a Sunni Arab majority people rather than risk chaos.
In the end, the Arab dictatorships and monarchies worship stability above anything else out of fear that continuing unrest could engulf them. The real schism isn't between Shia and Sunni but between rulers and subjects who should know their proper place. Lest you object that the Arab League backed the Libya War, let me remind you that the Arab League only endorsed a NATO no-fly zone--which I regarded as pointless.
But I don't think what rulers or outsiders want can stop the chaos in the Arab world. We can only hope to guide and support forces to create something better out of the rubble that will be created in the wake of popular revolts. [UPDATE: To be clear, I'm including popular revolts that fail. ]
