The Syrian civil war.
So on the one hand you have the Assad dictatorship.
Backed by Shia Muslim Iran, with the presence now of fighters from the notorious Lebanese militant Shia movement, Hezbollah. And supplied with weapons once again by Russia.
And on the other side you have a whole series of opposing groups. Who agree on only one thing - that Assad must go. Strongly, but not completely represented by the Sunni Muslims in Syria - of all stripes. Among them the Al-Nusra front, a group associated with Al-Qaeda.
There are now chemical weapons being used - by both sides remains a possibility.
Sounds like the sort of thing that the United Nations was set up originally to stop, but somewhere over its 65 year history, the UN lost sight of its mandate, and the chance of it doing owt effective falls into two categories - nowt and less than nowt!
You would also think "the West" might have the gumption to either try and get the fighting to stop, or at least to avoid getting involved.
Nope. The US is increasingly looking likely to send weapons to the opposition before long (no doubt the "thank you" note from Al-Qaeda has already been written - remember Afghanistan and the Afghan Arabs?). Certain members of the EU tried the same trick last week. That it failed to reach a consensus made the EU look as chaotic as ever.
Probably as well it didn't reach a consensus though.
Staying out of the whole unpleasant business may not look a satisfactory solution, but taking sides with the two sides involved? Can owt worthwhile come out of supporting either side? What we need is the end of the hostilities. An organisation, a country, a negotiator or series of negotiators .....
Not much chance of that. There is very much a World War One feel to the whole situation though. It is nasty now, it will probably stay nasty for a long time yet. And don't expect the regime in power when it comes to end, whenever that may be, to be all that friendly, or stable, either.
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