AP Photo

The failure of the Obama administration, its Western allies and several Middle East regional powers to take bolder action to stop the carnage in Syria is often explained by their fear of anarchy. Given the Syrian opposition’s manifest ineffectiveness and disunity, so the argument goes, President Bashar Assad’s fall, when it finally comes, will incite civil war, massacres and chaos, which is likely to spill over Syria’s borders, further destabilizing weak neighbours like Iraq and Lebanon, and leading, perhaps, to a regional crisis.