There are some who are persuaded that leading western states created, nurtured and may be are supporting extremist movements in the Arab World, including outfits like Jabhat Al Nusra and Daesh (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) — to name just the last two groups in vogue. Allegedly, and while western powers openly rejected barbarism, the rationale for such backing assumed that western governments felt no compunction when terrorists eliminated each other. Few bothered with the death of civilians caught in the middle of such clashes, euphemistically identified as “collateral damage”, and even fewer seemed concerned that brutal dictators benefitted from such nonchalance.

At the United Nations a few days ago, the most powerful man in the world found no words in his rich vocabulary to condemn the atrocities committed by the Baath regime in Syria, though he asserted that the mysterious Daesh represented a “network of death”. Why was this such an existential dilemma? Was the deliberate omission worthy of the highest elected official in one of the greatest powers in history?

Beyond the estimated nine to ten million Syrians who are now bona fide refugees, of which at least five million are outside the country, and beyond the huge death toll that conservative sources believe crossed the 250,000-mark — even if the United Nations agencies held on to their fictitious 190,000 figure — serious officials can no longer overlook the use of chemical weapons and the dropping of uncounted barrel bombs, among other atrocities, on densely inhabited areas. To find little or nothing to say about a regime that feels no qualms about levelling entire city neighbourhoods is truly unbecoming. For it is worth noting that none of these deeds are the work of Daesh.

To be sure, the latter are not innocent, and have committed their share of obscenities, including beheadings, rapes, forced conversions, expulsions, destruction of houses of worship and assorted similar calamities. All of that is certainly true. But so were Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Bagram prisons. So were various rendition programmes that engaged or encouraged eager guards to torture. So were the systematic deportations of prisoners accused of terrorism without the benefit of trials or other legal remedies. In fact, because the veneer of legality disappeared some time ago, and because democracies still operated under the rule of law, the onus was and must still be on them not to emulate the dastardly deeds that barbarians initiated and continue to practice. More important, it falls on the broad shoulders of free societies, and their leaders, to uphold the principles of liberty and freedom, to know the difference between the Daeshs of this world and dictatorial entities that pretend to promote security when, in fact, they undermine it.

President Barack Obama told the UN General Assembly that “there can be no reasoning, no negotiation, with this brand of evil [Daesh]. The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force”, he hammered. To further drive his point home, he promised that Washington would not act alone, as it did not “intend to send US troops to occupy foreign lands”. “Instead,” said the president, the US was ready to “support Iraqis and Syrians fighting to reclaim their communities”, and said “those who have joined [Daesh] should leave the battlefield while they can”. Whether this was yet another effort to encourage the Iraqi and Syrian governments to accelerate their repeated pledges to reconcile and introduce reforms was difficult to know.

What was also unclear was whether America’s Arab allies, led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, shared Washington’s long-term goals in Iraq and Syria. Indeed, the coalition of Arab states that joined the military engagements in both countries were likely to insist that beyond Daesh, and its acolytes, coalition members were called upon to work in unison to look beyond the Bashar Al Assad regime in Damascus.

Obama’s blunt call for Muslims to reject Daesh and other extremist movements represents a clear departure from his administration’s long-standing policies not to publicly focus on the religious aspects of terrorist groups, which was carefully noted in Riyadh and elsewhere, because so-called “Islamic extremism” was but one among several violent ideologies threatening global peace. “We must take concrete steps to address the danger posed by religiously motivated fanatics,” Obama told the UN gathering and pontificated that “no God condones this terror”. This was certainly true although, and as far as it was possible to decipher, no God condoned dropping barrel bombs from helicopters either. Such selectivity was the slippery-slope stuff that wise leaders tend to avoid.

It may be difficult to rationalise some of the latest actions and it may be convenient to ignore grievances, but what is hard to do is to pretend that the regime in Damascus is part of the solution. One can of course engage in selective recrimination and Daesh is the immediate threat, though in Syria one cannot, indeed one must not, overlook unspeakable atrocities that destroyed an entire nation at the hands of its presiding leader.

Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is the author of the forthcoming Iffat Al Thunayan: An Arabian Queen, London: Sussex Academic Press, 2015.