As Syria disintegrates   it’s becoming clear that the Assad regime in Damascus is over.

Western imperialism and American designs in particular, especially in a post-cold war theatre, have placed a huge premium on retaining dictators in the Arab world to deny democracy to Muslims for a variety of reasons.

One such reason has been the  argument that open societies in the Muslim world equate to lawlessness and anarchy, thus the preference for dictatorships who keep their populations on a tight leash to impose “law and order”.

Following Hafez al-Assad’s death, the ascendancy of his British-educated son, Bashar, was heralded in the West as a continuation of his father’s “moderate” policies.

It goes without saying that his repression of fundamental human rights  enjoyed the unflinching support of Western states.

But Syria today, like Iraq under   Saddam’s regime, has fallen out of favour with Western interests. It is not surprising therefore that chaos, anarchy and destruction in Syria today is a preferred option actively pursued by the US through a motley collection of  rebel formations to achieve regime change.