What the commentators said

The picture of Omran Daqneesh has “captivated the world”, said Robin Wright in The New Yorker. But he is just one of a generation of “war-ravaged” young Syrians facing the worst conditions in the world. More than a third of all casualties in Aleppo are now children. Only a “trickle of food” is reaching the city, there is no safe drinking water, and the injured are in constant danger: last month alone saw 42 air strikes on medical facilities, according to a group of Aleppo doctors who appealed to the White House for US intervention. What’s more, only 35 doctors remain for a population of 300,000 in the rebel-held district, said Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian-american doctor, in The Guardian. On my own visits, I have had to operate in hospitals without anaesthetics and under bombardment. Omran’s plight should remind the world of “a tragedy that has been unfolding for years”.

It’s high time for a “robust” intervention from the US, said Thanassis Cambanis in Foreign Policy. Under the “detached” leadership of President Obama, America “has let deadline after deadline lapse without consequence”, emboldening Assad and his Russian allies. Let’s now step up our training of “vetted” rebel groups, provide them with anti-aircraft weapons and deploy US special forces. But who precisely are our allies, asked Jonathan Spyer in The Spectator. The idea of a potent “moderate” rebel force is a “myth”. Today the Syrian rebellion is run by Islamist forces, in particular the so-called “Army of Conquest” coalition, which has links to al-qa’eda. To be sure, an Assad victory would be a “disaster” leading to the region’s domination by an anti-west Shia coalition led by Iran. But a rebel victory would turn Syria into a “Sunni Islamist dictatorship”. The best answer may be to leave Assad in control of some “enclaves” while helping Kurdish-led forces, our strongest allies, to crush Isis. That would at least recognise the new reality: that, as a “unitary state”, Syria “no longer exists”.