Every now and then, the conflict in Syria produces an iconic image of horror and suffering, which many brandish as an undisputable truth that will finally shake the world into “doing something”. Others break down at the sight of such images, or instinctively avert their senses. Mass killings and disappearances, industrial-scale torture and sexual abuse, gruesome staged executions, starvation tactics, the continued use of chemical weapons, napalm, cluster and barrel bombs, not to forget the torments of desperate emigration – all have spawned morbid emblems of their own.
Peter Harling, one of the foremost analysts of Syrian politics and the founder of Synaps, is a member of the advisory panel of the Shattuck Center on Conflict, Negotiation and Recovery.
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