Syria - my enemy's enemy is not always my friend

When Bashir Assad's regime in Syria fell, there was widespread and understandable rejoicing in many quarters.

Not only had one of the most murderous and brutal regimes in the world been overthrown, two other ghastly and very dangerous regimes - that in Iran and Putin's regime in Russia - had been seriously embarrassed and hampered in their ability to cause trouble.

I shed no tears for Assad or his murdering butchers, but feared that we might be celebrating too soon, and this is starting to look increasingly likely. 

The trouble is that regime's like Assad's all too often go after their more moderate, reasonable and democratic opponents first. Consequently, as depicted in the deeply sad 2014 cartoon below, by prominent Iranian artist Mana Neyestani, the most extreme and unpleasant opponents are left standing and the tyrant can present the world with an awful choice, pointing to an alternative like DAESH and  saying "It's me or him."

Those who consider themselves realists are often tempted to go down the road the dictator has laid out for him - but we need to remember, in BOTH directions, that the enemy of my enemy is NOT always my friend.

Nothing lasts forever and regimes like the Syrian and Iraqi Ba'ath parties always pay the price of their brutality in the end. The problem is that, and not by accident but as a direct result of their policies, what follows them can be as bad or even worse.

It must be made clear to the new government in Syria that if they want the sanctions which had been imposed on Assad lifted - as the county desperately needs - they are not mass murderers like him. The last few days suggests the only difference between the new regime and Assad's will be who the victims are.

If the new rulers of Syria do not act firmly, decisively and quickly to stop purges and murders of minority groups, then far from being lifted, sanctions should be intensified.