Given the mayhem in Syria, where death, destruction and displacement are routine, nothing shocks us any more. We’ve seen chemical weapons used, children tortured, refugees starved to death; we have watched the Syrian state collapse and neighbouring countries destabilised.
Few expect the disintegration to stop. Ask diplomats or analysts about Syria these days, and you are likely to hear predictions of several more years of war and fragmentation. And yet there are still moments in the crisis, which will soon enter its fourth year, that have so much destructive potential that they should shock us – and force us to recognise how badly adrift western policy on Syria has been.
A crucial moment came earlier this month when a collection of fighters known as the Islamic Front seized control of weapons depots and the headquarters belonging to rival rebels backed by an international coalition of western and Arab states.