Europe before the question of Syria

Whatever the effect on the ground may be of the European Union's decision to end selectively and à la carte the embargo on supplying arms to the moderate Syrian rebels, the hesitant manner in which it was implemented has already had the effect of enabling a defiant Moscow to announce it will send Bashar Al-Assad its advanced S-300 ground-to-air missiles.

This is a precise and up-to-date system — equivalent to the US Patriot missiles deployed in Turkey — and Israel has declared that it will "know what to do" if these missiles, which have a range of 300 kilometers, arrive in Damascus. With supreme cynicism, Russia says that the S-300s will help to "prevent foreign intervention, and stabilize the situation" in Syria.

If the EU intended to convey a message of firmness to Al-Assad in the context of next month's possible peace conference in Geneva, it has not succeeded. An organization that aspires to speak with a single voice and at the same time needs the unanimity of its 27 member states to adopt any relevant measure in foreign policy is an organization in chronic gridlock.

The underlying division on the Syrian issue so deplorably displayed by the EU openly devaluates its capacity to intimidate Damascus. Neither Paris nor London, the chief promoters of an end to the embargo, have said when they intend to begin sending weapons to the moderate combatants; but they have already distanced themselves from the announcement made in Brussels, according to which there exists a commitment not to do so until August in order to give the Geneva conference some chance of success.

Diplomacy has been lagging far behind developments in Syria. It is unlikely that European weapons aid — whenever it finally materializes — will serve to equip the moderates with the desirable negotiating strength or alter the situation on the ground in Syria, where after more than two years of looking the other way, jihadism has lately been making continual advances. But it is necessary at least to attempt this.

The ineffectiveness of the UN and the lack of political will in the US and the EU to stop a regime that has been exterminating its people have enabled Moscow, Tehran and the fundamentalist militia Hezbollah (all of them unlikely examples of commitment to desirable values) to close ranks around the Syrian tyrant. This passivity of the West — which has its local reflection in the profound political and military division among the rebels — in the last instance also strengthens the position of Al-Assad and his protectors in view of next month's planned meeting in Switzerland.