Ultimately, events in Libya, a country on the remote periphery of the Arab world and a cultural backwater, have no significant consequences beyond its own borders. The symbolism of a popular uprising toppling a tyrant will no doubt reverberate across the region. But the Arab world has witnessed violent transitions before; it has yet to see one end in an order that respects human rights and democratic aspirations. There is also no guarantee that the victors' justice will be magnanimous on the vanquished-Arab historical precedent is strong on revenge, weak on mercy. What will our consciences say, then, if the regime's cronies and their families are subjected to the same kind of brutality they had inflicted on their enemies while in power?

A collapse of the Syrian regime, by contrast, could have dramatic consequences,  aside from its humanitarian dimension. Iran would lose its only Arab ally — no wonder it has been propping up Damascus  since the beginning of the uprising. Lebanon might be snatched back from Iranian influence, and the terror organisations that Damascus hosts would be weakened. 

Finally, it appears that Assad's decision to develop a nuclear programme — recall Israel's mysterious air raid in September 2007 against what the International Atomic Energy Agency now calls a clandestine nuclear reactor — was not thanks to the scientific prowess of his scientists or the sophistication of Syria's industrial complex. It was a project produced by North Korean scientists and financed by Iran, a sort of surrogate motherhood that Syria agreed to in order to give Iran a back-up nuclear option in case its own was targeted by Israel or the US. If Assad goes, so does Iran's nuclear fallback.

In short, it will take more than Obama's belated call last month for Assad to go to produce a policy that will ensure that Syria is not left with a tyrant in power, with our interests left in tatters.