By Daily Star Editorial

The violence in Syria over recent days has focused considerable attention, and rightly so, on the behavior of the authorities, with President Bashar Assad at the top.
Observers and analysts have had a field day in outlining and dissecting the actions taken by Damascus, on various fronts, from the military to the political, diplomatic and socio-economic.

Syrian television has been offering a heavy dose of talk shows that discuss reforming the country’s bureaucracy, its government and its very society. The discussions might lead nowhere, but they do represent a general message of: Things could be better under the status quo than they would be under some unknown situation.
The rhetoric and policy might generate jokes, but what about other actors in the Syria crisis?

Western countries are engaging in Baath-like dancing with words. They are condemning certain acts, but failing to follow through with any meaningful actions. These countries are talking about “isolating” Assad, and what more? Do they have an endgame in mind? Are they prepared for the possible future scenarios?

Western states, led by the U.S., voice alarm about human rights in Syria, the kinds of things they didn’t seem to care about in Tunisia and Egypt, until the leader-for-life was on his way out of the presidential palace.
One Arab country experiences state-led repression and NATO steps quickly into the fray, promising a happy ending. Other countries see violence, but no movement to intervene.

The U.S. pleads for stable outcomes in the region, but it is engaged in bombing campaigns, military occupation or the flagrant support for occupation in half a dozen places in the wider Middle East: Somalia, Pakistan, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.

Meanwhile, the Arab world’s official silence on the violence in Syria has been striking, but not unexpected. The Arab League, the creaky official forum for governments, is turning in its usual disappointing performance.
The Arab League is the kind of organization whose major achievement each year is to actually hold its annual summit, albeit with a minimum number of boycotts by heads of member states.

The United Nations, as a body, might be criticized for ineffectiveness, but it does take a plethora of political stances. The Arab League is far too timid to do likewise, and its member states are perhaps too worried about their own domestic situations to be of much help.

On the other hand, the U.N. Security Council’s recent track record is exposing the defects of this body, where one dissenting voice is sometimes enough to block action on the kind of violence that earns condemnation in one place and military action in another.
Syria’s Assad is being vilified in many quarters for his government’s rhetoric and actions, but other parties in the saga have little to brag about.