The United Nations’ latest “Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic” paints a depressing portrait of the population’s unimaginable torment at the hands of government and opposition forces alike. The regime drops barrel bombs in Aleppo, and the rebels respond with gas cannisters of explosives and shrapnel. ISIS rapes and brutalizes Yazidi women whom it has declared slaves to be bought and sold. The regime’s security services practice torture on an industrial scale. Both sides besiege villages, and both sides commit massacres. The UN report’s forty-four pages of horrific war crimes should be sufficient for the outside powers to budge and call a halt to this war. What are they waiting for?

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