Another massacre- more dysfunction from UN

IN February 1982 more than 20,000 civilians died when forces under the command of General Rifaat Assad, younger brother of President Hafez Assad, reduced much of Hama, Syria's fourth city, to rubble to crush a Sunni uprising.

Almost exactly 30 years on, forces under the command of Maher Assad, younger brother of President Basher Assad, are destroying large swaths of Homs, Syria's third city, killing thousands more men, women and children as they seek to crush another Sunni rebellion.

History repeats itself, as the saying goes. Homs seems set to join Hama in the shameful list of places for which the world has wrung its hands but done nothing while civilians are slaughtered. It is a list that grows steadily longer - Srebrenica and Sarajevo in Bosnia, Matabeleland in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Congo...

As tanks rumbled into the shattered streets of Baba Amr in Homs yesterday, Western powers were blithely preparing yet another resolution for the United Nations Security Council, this one demanding an end to the violence and access for humanitation aid workers to cities like Homs.

This is a mere sop to conscience. Even if Russia and China were to show a flash of moral scruple and agree the resolution, what chance of Bashar Assad's regime acting on it? Yesterday it refused to allow the UN's humanitarian aid chief, Baroness Amos, to enter the country simply to assess the need for emergency relief.

Some fundamental facts must now be faced. This regime is not susceptible to international pressure. It will stop at nothing to ensure its own survival. The bloodshed will spread as it transfers its attentions from the remnants of Homs to other rebellious towns and cities.

We tend to think that freedom fighters always prevail in the end. The toppling of dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya last year reinforced that belief. But President Assad's model is not the Arab Spring. It is Hama, and the use of overwhelming force that enabled his father to survive - and Rifaat to enjoy his retirement in Mayfair.

The son's regime cannot be allowed to survive through the same means. That would send a terrible message to other embattled despots, show the West to be impotent, give a huge boost to Iran's pernicious regime and much else besides. It is time seriously to consider actions not words - buffer zones, no-fly zones, even arming and training the Syrian opposition. These are not good options, just the least bad.