A recent report by the International Crisis Group sets out in typically comprehensive fashion how the influx of refugees into Lebanon is threatening the country’s delicate confessional religious balance and placing significant stresses upon already stretched basic services thereby contributing to an escalation of societal tensions.

As I discovered when in Lebanon last week, Qatar and Saudi Arabia might be swamping Syria with arms to assist the rebel efforts, but they are staying away from Lebanon as a holiday resort because of the resulting instability. The hotels are eerily empty and much as I like breakfasting alone, tourism is the life blood of the Lebanese economy.

Responding to the refugee crisis is both a humanitarian and a political challenge. The political decision not to open refugees camps in Lebanon means that no official statistics exist as to the exact size of the refugee community, but it is estimated that it now amounts to some 1.2 million people. This equates to one-quarter of the total population. This number is rising daily and could swell if, as anticipated, there is an intensification of fighting in Syria ahead of the Geneva conference.

Which ever way you look at it, these are brutal figures which reveal the true human cost of the conflict. The problem though with numbers such as these is that after a while they just leave you numb.

To help shock the senses it’s worth considering how the UK might respond if over a 2 year period 16 million refugees, a quarter of our existing population, suddenly turned up on our shores seeking refuge. It’s fair to say that such an ‘influx’ would cause considerable social, political and economic unrest.

It’s to the credit of the Lebanese people that the border with Syria has remained open. If the international community was willing to match this generosity with necessary funds then the strain on resources in Lebanon would be eased and the quality of refugee protection enhanced.

Sadly though, donor fatigue has already set in. International pledges haven’t been met. UNHCR claim that the system is already at breaking point even though they predict that the total number of refugees is likely to triple by the end of the year.

Relief agencies like IOCC, the International Orthodox Christian Charities, recognise that they are barely scratching the surface of current needs. They worry that the discrepancy between needs and resources might grow if there is a Haiti style disaster. They are also concerned that the advent of any political process to resolve the crisis might deceive donors into thinking that the crisis is over when all we are seeing at the moment is the tip of the iceberg.

Responding generously to the Syrian refugee crisis isn’t just about doing the right thing it’s about doing the smart thing.

Any transitional process that emerges from Geneva 2 will need the support of neighboring countries. This support is less likely to be forthcoming when the resilience of these countries has already been slowly eroded. Providing proper levels of refugee protection would also help to combat the growing radicalisation of some refugees who are tempted to return to Syria to swell the ranks of the rebels.

Even in the absence of any transitional process, the international community could be doing far more than it is currently to contain the conflict. Useful steps have admittedly been taken to support the Lebanese army patrol hot spots like Tripoli, but unless the pressing humanitarian situation in Lebanon and other countries is also addressed such efforts might prove insufficient to maintain the country’s stability.

In short, the international community should recognise that tackling the humanitarian fallout from Syria can play an important in the efforts to de-escalate the conflict and in making any political transition in Syria viable.

Story telling is an important part of foreign policy. I remember that one of the aims of the Strategic Defence and Security Review that the UK Coalition Government undertook after the election was to equip the country with a common narrative to help explain our role in the world and to give us a reference point when engaging with complex issue.

Despite these benefits there are risks. The stories tend to be too simple and fail to capture the complexity of the world around us. We can become so wedded to a particular narrative we find it impossible to deviate from it. In such situations we run the risk of an ideologically driven foreign policy which seeks to impose our own schema on others.

As in the run up to the Second Iraq War the stories we create can sometimes be delivered with such passion and conviction that they become all corrupting. When narratives lead us to adopt extreme policies that we might not otherwise have chosen then it is probably time to ditch the narrative.

This isn’t always easy when the narrative takes on an existential dimension as in the case in Israel and Palestine. To move beyond a deeply held and lived narrative requires us in no small way to modify how we see ourselves and others.

One of the reasons – and there are many – for the current impasse on Syria is that the conflict has brought into focus competing narratives within the United Nations Security Council while also giving rise to new ones within Syria and the wider region involving the warring parties themselves. One set of narratives mapped onto another set of narratives has contributed to a deadly stalemate.

The international community’s ability to act as therapist and honest broker in Syria has been compromised by the dispute within its own ranks regarding competing understandings of national sovereignty and when, if at all, it is permissible to intervene in the internal affairs of another nation state. At its heart this dispute is about competing world views. From a Russian perspective, Syria represents rightly or wrongly an opportunity to redress the perceived injustice of the intervention in Kosovo in 1998 and Libya in 2011.

The moves by US Senator John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to convene Geneva 2 suggests there is an understanding of the need for all sides to escape, even if only temporary, the confines of their own narratives. This principled pragmatism is to be welcomed but the rapprochement remains fragile and tentative and could easily be reversed.

Building a shared future for the people of Syria from a divided and violent immediate past will be a long, messy and drawn out affair subject to stresses, shocks and set-backs. Geneva 2, if it takes place at all, should be seen less as an event and more the start of a process.

The task of encouraging the resumption of some semblance of politics in Syria and nurturing that process over the coming months and years would be made that much easier if the permanent members of the UNSC, France and Britain included, remembered that foreign policy requires holding competing narratives, even their own narratives, in tension and that the search for peace inevitably involves compromises that ‘ruins’ even the most simplest of stories.

Not, as Hague might have wished on the Assad regime’s military operation in Syria, which continues unabated, but on Russian who followed with it’s own announcement that it would supply the Syrian government with anti-aircraft missiles in order to deter ‘hotheads’ from intervening in Syria. Fearful that such equipment might prejudice its own security an Israeli defence spokesperson subsequently indicated that Israel would know how to respond to any such development.

If nothing else this chain of chaotic events underlines the dangers of unintended consequences when dealing with Syria. In the space of 24 hours the risk of this conflict fully mutating into an all-out proxy war and drawing in other countries in the region has become ever more apparent.

This shift in policy seems strangely perverse when, as William Hague acknowledged earlier today on The World at One, the conflict represents the “worst crisis affecting world affairs at the moment and the biggest humanitarian crisis today.” What the consequences might be if Britain did actually arm the moderate rebels remains a dangerous unknown.

Rather than focusing attention on preparations for Geneva II, there is a risk that attention will now shift to closer scrutiny of how such a decision might be enacted. The Foreign Secretary’s statement that no decision had yet been made to arm the moderate rebels will satisfy no one least of all the rebels in Syria or for that matter those on the Government’s own back bench.

Those fearful that Britain risks being dragged into a conflict will rightly press the Government on how it will decide if and when to arm the rebels? If this is linked to Geneva II, what constitutes success and failure? Others will press the Government to spell out in further detail how it might distinguish between the moderate democratic wheat and the radical jihadist chaff?

Security analysts will press for clarification on what type of weaponry might be supplied and how the Government might guarantee their end use? Others will question the financial cost of doing so given the existing pressures on government spending?

Legal commentators will no doubt inquire as to whether such a move is compatible with international humanitarian law. Government assurances will inevitably lead to pressure to publish the Attorney General’s legal advice.

Why the Government has decided on the eve of Geneva II to open this Pandora’s Box and invite such a maelstrom of public scrutiny is bewildering and rightly needs to be subject to public scrutiny.

It is conceivable that last night’s decision might give Assad pause for thought, but no more than that. Assad still believes he can win this conflict. If the last 2 years have shown anything it is that he is not susceptible to international pressure unless that comes from his main backers Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

If the Government had hoped that it might somehow influence Russia to rethink its allegiance towards Assad the subsequent announcement from the Russian Foreign Minister has quickly put paid to that prospect. Russia has shown its determination to maintain the balance of power in favour of the regime.

Having being out manoeuvred over Libya, Russia is unlikely to soften its position over Syria. I still remember the lecture the Russian Ambassador gave the Bishop of Bath and I last year about the damage to international trust caused by the Libyan intervention.

It is entirely possible that the UK has already concluded privately that Geneva II is unlikely to deliver a transitional arrangement and that alternative strategies are needed. If that is the case then last night’s decision signals a UK determination to ensure that even if Assad can’t be toppled the rebels won’t loose.

Manufacturing a protracted stalemate in Syria in the hope that the parties might eventually get exhausted enough to strike a deal on their own is realpolitik in the extreme. It would open the way for a prolonged conflict the human cost of which is too frightening too imagine.

Sadly, missing in all the current analysis and debate, is any consideration of what type of Syria we want to see emerge from the conflict and what it will take, beyond arms to get there? With Geneva II fast approaching this is worrying.

Unless we can begin to grapple imaginatively with this question and to reconcile rather than entrench the competing narratives the prospect for restoring human relationships in Syria looks bleak indeed. Seen from this perspective it is difficult not to see last night’s decision in Brussels as anything other than a policy of despair.

This is not to say that the coverage here in the UK is misplaced merely to suggest that there are certain a priori assumptions upon which it is founded that conflict with the view from Beirut. Proximity doesn’t necessarily give you perspective, but it does invite a questioning of the political discourse that one has become accustomed to.

UK politicians and news outlets have over the last 2 years all too often portrayed the conflict in Syria as a liberational struggle against a brutish and nasty regime. Rather than analysing the conflict in its own terms the uprising was initially explained by reference to the transformations ongoing in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa.

When the conflict mutated the human rights and democracy narrative espoused by politicians and the media remained the same. Political positions taken in the embryonic stages of the conflict, namely that Assad must go, have remained static, even though if there were elections in Syria next Assad would in all probability win.

Distressing pictures of civilians fleeing and burgeoning refugee camps have merely served to reinforce the humanitarian dimension of this narrative. Humanitarian hawks have pressed for action – maybe not along the lines of Kosovo in 1999, but certainly according to the Libyan model of a couple of years back. The Government has resisted these demands by pressing for the arming of the more moderate elements of the opposition as if it was possible to separate out the democratic and moderate wheat from the radical jihadist chaf.

Human rights and democracy are obviously important, and should help shape our understanding of and response to the conflict, but they are not the only dimensions to this conflict that need to be considered. The dominance of this agenda within policy formation and news reporting is such that we run the risk of adopting a dualistic view of the conflict.

When all we see is good or evil, light or dark, black and white we are in danger of overlooking the shades of grey that give this conflict its multi-layered complexity. Unless we recognize this complexity any intervention is going to be bluntly ineffective and at risk of compounding the situation. Arming the ‘moderate’ opposition would be one such blunt instrument.

After seven-day in Lebanon I do not claim to understand the full complexity of the conflict in Syria or its impact on the confessional balance in Lebanon, but the one thing I’m clear about is that this is not a Manichean contest between freedom-lovers and bloodthirsty authoritarians.

This is as much a conflict between different versions of Sunni Islam as it is between the Sunni majority and the Shiite/Alawite minority. It is also a contest between different understandings as to the role of religion within society and the relationship between the State and religion.

In this respect what is taking placing in Syria is no different, although admittedly considerably more violent, than what is taking place in Egypt and Tunisia. What we initially liked to call the Arab Awakening has opened fault lines within Islam that are being mined by a variety of actors for their own self-interest.

In Syria these fractures are being exploited both by indigenous and extraneous forces with such force and violence that it is difficult under any scenario to now imagine Syria returning to the status quo ante. The ethno-religious violence will not be assuaged with the departure of Assad. Pressing for his departure as if this is the cure for all Syria’s ills is short-sighted and ill-informed and points to an alarming disconnect between our foreign policy machinery and the situation on the ground.

Repeatedly throughout my time in Lebanon interlocutors talked about the Balkanization or Somalisation of Syria. The fighting in Qusair was all too often portrayed as a strategic battle not because it would cut the rebels supply routes, important though that is, but because it opened up the possibility of creating a continuous Shiite/Alawaite land corridor on the Mediterranean coast that in its most radical version could well include Shiite dominated parts of Lebanon.

The alternative post-conflict scenario touched upon was the idea of a consociational arrangement for Syria similar to that which currently exists in Lebanon where confessional autonomy is balanced by a grand coalition where no one party can dominate and where minority rights are preserved. Anyone familiar with Lebanese politics would know that such an arrangement is highly unstable as it exacerbates political and religious divisions. Even catching a taxi from one part of Beirut to another is a perilously expensive affair as most taxi drivers only work within their own confessional areas.

Where either of these scenarios leaves the Christian community of Syria is anyones guess, but given the geographical demographics of Syria it is highly probable that many will seek refuge outside the country.

The intricacies of this ethno-religious conflict and possible solutions appear largely absent from the editorial pages of our newspapers and from our government’s calculations. There is a danger that with Geneva II looming the Government will continue to remain blindly wedded to the narrative that it has created. If it does so, it risks becoming a complicating factor in the negotiations. The Government’s human rights and democracy agenda would be better served if it paid closer attention to the shades of grey and adopted a more nuanced position.

Battered by post war austerity and the humiliations of Suez, Le Carre accurately captures the sense of national decline that afflicted Britain at the time and the fear that that Britain risked being left outside a more united and prosperous Europe. With Europe yet again dominating the news, A Small Time in Germany, is a useful reminder that our membership of the EU has always been an accounting exercise rather than an affair of the heart. We’ve always been an awkward partner.

One of the reasons why the European question has become so pointed in recent years is the prevailing feeling that the political costs of membership outweigh the economic benefits. A key argument deployed by Nigel Lawson in his article in The Times last week was that Britain urgently needs new sources of economic growth and that Europe is unlikely to provide them. Europe is seen as over regulated and inwardly focused. The rules of membership of the single market are seen as an unnecessary Gallic break on economic competitiveness.

This is new territory.

The European debate has moved beyond the all too familiar debates about national sovereignty to the question of Britain’s long term economic survival. Political questions about Europe’s democratic deficit still exist but they have been joined by economic concerns about its competiveness and whether current arrangements best serve Britain’s economic national interest.

It is perhaps the combination of these two variables that makes the current European debate so politically toxic and problematic for Cameron. In the past, the hostility of British political classes to foreign encroachments on judicial, parliamentary or governmental sovereignty were always kept in check by the enthusiasm they showed for economic internationalism by championing the single market and EU enlargement.This bargain has always been fragile at the best times, as illustrated by the budget debates of the 1980s, but since the economic slump of 2008 the bargain is fast unravelling.

Eurosceptism is now part of the political mainstream in a way that it never was in the 1980s or 1990s.Back bench rebellions on Europe were rare events 20 years ago. Now they are common place. Slowly but surely the possibility of British withdrawal is being normalised. It is not enough that the EU Act places acts as an emergency brake on future transfers of power and sovereignty to Brussels, Britain wants and demands, or so we are led to believe, a renegotiated settlement.

Paradoxically these rebellions and the emerging political discourse on Europe have been legitimated by Cameron himself. Right from the outset the vision of Cameron and Hague for 21st century foreign policy is one in which Britain sits pragmatically as a hub nation in the centre of a lattice-work of flexible, overlapping networks. With dire public finances and anaemic growth, there is no room for grandiose imperial schemes such as remaking the world in Europe’s image.

It always strikes me when travelling in Europe, not least to Brussels, that people just don’t understand the uniqueness of the British debate here. They assume that British Eurosceptism is at heart a variant of the nasty angry nationalism that stalks minority parties in Europe. There is certainly an English flavour to the debate, that I suspect reflects a deeper disgruntlement with devolution, and yet, I’ve loads of friends who would consider themselves to be liberal metropolitan types but who are deep dyed Eurosceptics.

This isn’t to say that the modern British Eurosceptism isn’t without its contradictions and tensions. As a I keep remideing my Eurosceptic friends and colleagues, you can’t have a single free trade area, open markets and undistorted competition in Europe without supra-national regulators to police competition, state aid payments and non-tariff barriers.

Similarly the populist appeal for some parts of the political Eurosceptic agenda seems a little misplaced when it would result in lower social protection and employment rights. It stills surprises me that deregulation minded Eurosceptics claim that they are representing the honest yeoman of Britain fed up with Brussels meddling when they are essentially advocating supply side measures most favoured by business or employers federations.

The more pressing question here is surely why Germany – bound by the same EU employment, social and environmental rules that supposedly hold Britain back – is a champion at selling to China? If the only way we can compete internationally is by winning the race to the bottom then we really are in a sorry mess.

Im always struck when people say we have culturally more in common with our trans-Atlantic friends than our friends across the channel. But let’s face it, when it comes to attitudes to religion, gun ownership, capital punishment, social welfare, the environment or the desirability of free, universal public healthcare, we are more European than we realise.

The problem at present is that these tensions and contradictions within the Eurosceptic discourse remain hidden due to the on-going political debate about the mechanics of any referendum. We might all agree that we don’t like present arrangements – and lets be honest we aren’t the only Europeans to feel this way – but we have yet to start teasing out what political and economic arrangements would work best, let alone how we might realise them through negotiations.

The optimist in me welcomes the opportunity provided by an in-out referendum to have an honest debate about the costs and benefits of membership that moves away from tabloid populism. The UK’s first referendum on Europe in 1975 belongs to another time and another generation and it is perhaps only right that the democratic consensus underpinning our membership is tested. The pessimist in me worries, however, it is already too late to have a cool, rational debate on EU membership as hostility to Europe is now so well entrenched.

It is all too easy in our shock and horror at the use of chemical weapons to overlook what their usage signifies. Chemical and biological weapons are never the weapons of choice. They are blunt and indiscriminate and are designed both to inflict death on its victims but also to send a message of terror to others. In the case of Syria it signals that the regime cannot rely on conventional military means to secure its own survival.

With much of the Sunni dominated Syrian army confined to barracks, the regime lacks the necessary conventional instruments to regain territory lost to the rebels and has become ever more reliant on non-conventional military means. Talk of tipping points can often be over played, but the use of chemical weapons in Syria should be taken as a sign of regime weakness rather than strength. Their use signifies that the regime is becoming increasingly desperate and willing to challenge, if not cross, the boundaries of what is considered acceptable behavior in warfare.

Despite all the talk of ‘red lines’ being crossed, it remains important following the build up to the Second Iraq War that the claims of chemical weapons use be investigated. The existing evidence might be credible but it needs to be verified independently. The UN team of experts tasked with investigating these claims is currently stranded in Cyprus, denied entry by Damascus. This is clearly an unacceptable situation and one that the UN must address with all urgency. Regardless of whatever the US decides to do over the short term, it is important that data be collected and analysed and if verified charges laid that sees the perpetrators brought to justice at a future date.

It is important that the US deals with Syria on its own terms. President Obama must not allow himself to be bounced into action on Syria merely to prove to Israel that he is serious about defending the red line with Iran. In the first instance, Obama needs to use the allegations of Assad’s chemical use to re-engage diplomatically with Russia and China. More than anything, the diplomatic stand-off between the US and Russia has helped fuel the conflict in Syria. With Russia also declaring that the use of chemical weapons in Syria to be a red line, a rare opportunity exists to develop through the UN a unified international front. Even if Russia is not yet ready to withdraw its support for Assad, it is in its interests that the regime’s chemical and biological arsenal are locked down and placed under some form of UN stewardship.

It would be all too easy in this instance to escape the charge of passivity by providing lethal military assistance to kosher Syrian rebels via the Syrian National Council. That, I suspect, would be a dangerous and treacherous road to venture down. There are good reasons why Western governments have balked at this option in the past, and, despite the softening in position by France and the UK to this option, Assad’s resort to chemical weapons doesn’t change the original logic. The arming of more moderate rebels on the ground will do nothing to impede Assad’s use of non-conventional weapons and might even accelerate their use. Discussion about arming the moderate rebels is an unhelpful distraction.

None of this is to say that the US should not send a clear signal to the Assad regime that further transgressions will not be tolerated. Deploying additional ground forces to Jordan and placing more armed and sea power in the region might serve as a useful deterrent. Yet if such a deployment does occur then the US and its allies must be willing to use them if Assad calls their bluff.

This letter was picked up widely by other media outlets both here in the UK and further afield. For the most part the media reaction was fair and balanced.

The one exception was the coverage offered by Britain’s dearly beloved Daily Mail. It decided to run a story accusing the signatories of political naivety in claiming that development aid is working.

A close inspection of the letter reveals no such claim. The letter argues instead that development is working even if challenges remain. Such misreporting is hardly news worthy these days, especially when it comes from the Daily Mail, but it is disengenious nontheless.

Despite my gripe with the Daily Mail, I was encouraged to see the Archbishop of Canterbury respond in his blog, last Friday, to what the Daily Mail thought the letter claimed. The Archbishop’s blog, When aid works and why, is worth reading and is copied below.

When aid works and why

“Last weekend a group of religious leaders, including the Archbishop of Westminster and me, wrote a letter urging G8 nations to stick to their targets on foreign aid. Some have opposed this call by suggesting that most aid money gets wasted or sucked up by corruption, and that developing countries are much better helped by growing trade.

These criticisms are important and at one level I don’t dispute them. Economic growth is undeniably the key to removing nations from poverty. In fact I have been and continue to be involved in seeking to promote trade with Nigeria – especially from areas of deprivation in the UK – for this very reason. At the same time, no one can deny the existence of corruption and the fact that money has been wasted as a result. This is why, in our letter, we backed Britain’s call for national governments to be more transparent.

But so often the critics ignore the many instances where aid truly works – especially in vulnerable conflict and post-conflict situations. Certainly that was what I saw during more than a decade of working in Africa.

When money is put in the hands of faith-based and civil society networks, it can be utterly transformative. Because these organisations are highly accountable, very little money is lost to corruption. Local clergy know exactly what their communities need and how to spend funds wisely.

During decades of war in Sudan, the Episcopal Church of Sudan led a teaching programme to ensure that children continued to receive some kind of education – often under trees in the countryside. Since 2007, they have received around £3.4 million of UK Aid funds which they have used to train thousands of teachers. With less than one per cent of girls in South Sudan completing secondary education, it’s hard to overstate the importance of this work.

One example from my personal experience illustrates the big difference that a local priest can make.

When I was Dean of Liverpool, the Cathedral supported a priest with a gift of $5,000. He spent this on training in reconciliation which helped transform the divided community he worked in. Every cent was accounted for, and the impact was significant. Scale that up across a country and it may be a few millions, but it will transform. Add some equally targeted money for local education in church schools, training for farmers, basic equipment – and you change a society.

I too object to any wastage of taxpayers’ money. When our troops were sent into Sierra Leone in 2000, they were of course enormously effective in helping sort out a crisis. But a military initiative of that kind costs millions of taxpayers’ money. Far smaller sums, invested earlier, have enabled nations to avoid conflict, and hence avoid the costs and dangers of sending in our armed forces.

I always think it’s like the difference between vaccinating someone and treating the full-blown disease. Skipping the injection may save you three pounds per person, but the moment they start getting rushed through the hospital doors that amount starts multiplying many times over.

Not all aid is good, but not all aid is dead. The way it is delivered may indeed be an issue, but the principle should not be.

That’s why ultimately these criticisms fail to satisfy me – either on an ethical level, or on a practical, value-for-money level. They ignore the transformative impact that aid can and does have in fragile countries struggling to meet basic human needs – an impact which can transform local communities and help all of us in the long run.”

In a letter to the Financial Times , that is reproduced on the Lambeth Palace website, the religious leaders from across the faith traditions draw attention to the fact that we have a moral responsibility to deliver on the MDGs and that the right decisions taken at the G8 Summit in June 2013 can accelerate that process. Many of them have also taken to twitter (#1000DaysToGo) to raise awareness of this date and the need for all us of to accelerate our efforts to securing the goals by the end of 2015.

The letter is timely coming as it does in the same week as the OECD reported that development aid across the OECD fell by 4% in real terms in 2012, following a 2% fall in 2011. The continuing financial crisis and euro zone turmoil has led several governments to tighten their budgets. This has had a direct impact on aid to poor countries. We need to reverse this trend if aid is to play its part in helping achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Here in Britain we should be proud that at a time when we need to rebalance our own economy, the Chancellor has committed the government to spending 0.7% of GDP on aid. In a world where one in eight people go to bed hungry we have an obligation to help. British aid helps feed hungry people and save lives in Africa, Asia and beyond. Other governments need to follow Britain’s lead.

It remains true though that while development aid is an important ingredient in tackling global poverty, it is no silver bullet. More money is lost to developing countries in tax evasion than is received in aid. The 80 signatories are wise to this reality and call on the G8 to look at ways in which it can strengthen the capacity of developing countries to collect taxes from multi-nationals.

What stands out in this expertly crafted letter is less the specific policy recommendations, welcome though they are, but the way the religious leaders remind us all, governments and citizens alike, that in addition to providing for the well being of our own societies, we have a collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity at the global level. Only by so doing will we start to lay the foundations for a more peaceful, prosperous and just world.

Thirteen years on from the start of the Millennium the values and principles that drive these goals are timeless and universal. We must not allow the financial crisis of recent years to narrow our moral horizons or to reduce our hunger and thirst for justice. Nor should we allow ongoing talk of what ought to replace these goals in 2015 to absolve us from the promises that were made at the start of the Millennium. Absolution doesn’t work that way.

Much has been achieved over the last 13 years – the number of people living in extreme poverty has been halved ahead of time and 14,000 fewer children die each day than in 1990. Development is working – don’t let the naysayers tell you otherwise – but we do need to accelerate our efforts if we are to realise the 8 goals by the end of 2015.

If nothing else, lets hope that today’s letter from 80 religious leaders helps to sharpen political attention and public engagement on the road ahead. You can help this effort by adding your voice on Twitter using #1000DaysToGo

Not only is this his first visit to Israel as President, it is his first foreign visit as a second term President. In a region rife in symbolism and in a land where symbols are themselves contested every part of the President’s visit will be scrutinized for meaning.

What are we meant to make of the President visiting the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, but not the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem? What message is the President trying to convey by visiting a mobile missile defense battery, albeit not one in the field?

To be fair, any Presidential visit to Israel is going to be high-profile at the best of times. This time around, however, there is heightened speculation about whether Obama will use his second term to lead from the front in reviving the peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

My own guess is that he won’t, but that he will try do just enough to ensure that the window of opportunity on a two state solution doesn’t close on his Presidential watch. John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, might be given a longer leash than his predecessor to engage in shuttle diplomacy, but unless a diplomatic breakthrough looks likely the President won’t get personally involved.

It’s important to remember that even in last year’s televised Presidential debates on foreign policy, foreign policy didn’t feature. In his State of the Union speech earlier this year, Obama signaled that now was the time to engage in nation building at home rather than abroad. Even before Obama’s pivot to the East, America’s growing energy sufficiency signaled a declining strategic importance of the Middle East in US foreign policy.

Netanyahu might have announced a new coalition government late last week, but it is such an unstable coalition that further elections shouldn’t be ruled out. Israel and its politicians remain in electioneering rather than peace making mode. Although 70 percent of Israeli’s say they believe in a two state solution, the same number of Israeli’s believe they won’t see it in their lifetime. A grand unilateral gesture by Netanyahu is not a far-fetched possibility but it is unlikely.

A closer look at the recent elections signaled that for most Israeli’s the political priority is to address the rising cost of living and the growing levels of inequality. Securing a peace with the Palestinians didn’t feature in the elections. From a foreign policy perspective the faltering Arab Spring, the potential spill over from Syria and the existential threat posed by a nuclear Iran all take precedent over relaunching a Middle East Peace Process.

The more pressing and prescient question is whether Obama will be able to keep the window of opportunity sufficiently open on a two state solution to stop others calling time on it. The growth of new settlements and the rising tide of violence in the West Bank, which a number of analysts have signalled as the start of the Third Intifada, all indicate how fragile and untenable the status quo has become and herein lies the political dilemma for Obama – managing the conflict is fast becoming as difficult a challenge as resolving it. No wonder Obama’s aides are going to great lengths to manage expectations ahead of the visit.

The case for arming the opposition isn’t just informed by ethical considerations but also by strategic concerns.

The asymmetry between Syrian government forces and opposition groups has created a paralyzing stalemate which has inflicted huge civilian suffering. The various reports out this week by Save the Children and UNICEF show in all too graphic detail the true cost of the conflict. To stand idly by when innocents are being killed is not an option, especially when others such as Russia and Iran are actively arming the regime. This isn’t Iraq 2003, but Iraq 1991 when civilians with Western encouragement rose up against the regime only to be left to fend for themselves.

With the diplomatic process stuck in the long grass due to the self-serving obstructionist policies of Russia and China some form of intervention to redress the imbalance is legitimate. Since putting boots on the ground is not an option politically, arming the Syrian opposition becomes the default option. Given that the Syrian army’s strength is now half what it was at the start of the conflict arming the opposition could well tip the balance and break the back of the regime.

Strategically, the longer the conflict persists the more violent it is likely to become and the greater the possibility that it will become a magnet for extremist groups. It follows then that we have a responsibility to safeguard the stability of the wider region and indeed to protect our own vital national interests.

The combination of both humanitarian and strategic concerns is powerful, but even the most ardent humanitarian hawk will have reservations about arming the opposition. For a start, who exactly would we be arming and what would we be arming them with?

The opposition is not a clearly defined and coherent homogenous group. It is highly fragmented and essentially local in nature. With the civil war attracting jihadists from around the region how do we distinguish between radical and more moderate groups? With the opposition fragmenting every day, there is a very real possibility of clashes between different elements of the insurgency. Would we be seeking to arm moderate rebels against the regime or against jihadist groups, or both?

Nor should we kid ourselves that even those who we consider to be ‘moderate’ have not been involved in atrocities against the regime. Such a black and white picture doesn’t fit with reports emanating from the region. The idea that in arming rebel groups we could encourage their greater self-discipline is fanciful.

Nor should we be deaf to the lessons of Libya where we are still dealing with the consequences of our decision to arm local militia. Many of the armaments we supplied in Libya have now turned up in the wrong hands in Mali.

A decision to arm the rebels would represent a significant departure from existing policy. There were good reasons why Western governments balked at the idea of supplying anything other than non-lethal military assistance. Has the situation changed so significantly over the last few months to justify such a reversal?

These are legitimate concerns and while there is a strong case for arming the rebels, these concerns need to be addressed before any decision is reached. Such a decision would also need to have wider ownership both domestically and internationally. A decision by France, the UK and the USA to supply arms without the support of a broader Western coalition risks disrupting the already fragile consensus on Syria and in turn intensifying geopolitical risks.