What the commentators said

The Syrian war probably still has many years to run, said Max Fisher in The New York Times. Research suggests that the average civil war lasts about a decade; Syria’s began in 2011. But there are a number of factors that can make them longer and more violent; all are present in Syria. Since 1945, the UN has managed to resolve two-thirds of two-sided civil wars, but only a quarter of multisided ones. “Syria’s battlefield is a complex polygon”, involving regime forces, a range of rebels, Isis and the Kurds. Most civil wars end when one side loses or exhausts popular support. But here each side is backed by foreign powers – Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the US – which do not “feel the war’s costs first-hand”, and keep the cash flowing. Academic experts on the subject think it is the most intractable conflict in recent history.

Outside meddling has just exacerbated the horror in Syria, said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. The West’s support for Assad’s enemies, like its removal of Saddam and Gaddafi, “aided the cause not of democracy but of chaos”. I believe the world “has two simple duties towards the civil wars of others. One is not to take sides, to ‘give war a chance’ to resolve internal conflict.” The other is to aid its victims. Even that seems to have gone wrong, said Nick Hopkins and Emma Beals in the same newspaper. The UN aid programme has awarded millions of dollars in contracts to close associates of President Assad. The UN says it is forced to work with those approved by the regime, and does all it can to ensure money is well spent. But its decision to pay $13m direct to the government to boost farming seems highly questionable, while the $5m paid to support Syria’s blood bank has been controlled by Assad’s own defence department.

In Iraq, the end of conflict with Isis may be in sight, said Emma Graham-harrison in The Observer. But that could unleash a new refugee crisis. Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government envisages, in the best-case scenario – a rapid campaign to capture Mosul – some 100,000 civilians fleeing into Iraqi Kurdistan. The “bleakest forecast” is of a battle that drags on for months – sending a million people into a statelet on the brink of economic collapse.