Syria: self-interest squashes Spring.

Syria: self-interest squashes Spring Of all the Arab Spring revolutions, Syria's is the longest and is rapidly becoming the most brutal. Peaceful demonstrations which started in March 2011 have descended into what the UN calls a non-international armed conflict, a euphemism for a civil war. Even more troubling are reports of sectarian violence and of foreign jihadis and Al-Qaeda fighters from Iraq and Afghanistan joining the Free Syrian Army. Their aim is to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad's regime and replace it with an Islamic state. This is going to make what is already a complex situation even more difficult to resolve. Yet the world sits and watches. Paralysed into inaction by …