'Foreign influence & arms have split Syria's civil movement, making peace ever more remote'

"... The aims of those intervening from outside Syria were at odds with the revolutions's songs of dignity and freedom. There was a mismatch between the internal need to overthrow the country's ruling class, described as Alawite, and the desire of some outside the country to both break the Shia crescent – stretching from Beirut to Tehran via Damascus – and rid the Mediterranean of Russia's military presence. Some sought to give the impression that Syria's uprising was a sectarian conflict or made efforts to Islamise or Salafise it. Russia and China, meanwhile, saw an opportunity to shift from a US-dominated unipolar world to a multipolar one. One of the paradoxes of the Syrian uprising for freedom was that it created an opportunity to revive the foreign policy and strengthen the influence of Saudi Arabia...."