By Charles Glass

A Syrian friend of mine complained, rightly, that both sides in the country's civil war have had a hand in destroying his house.

His summer villa was perched in a hillside village between Damascus and the Lebanese border. Armed militants broke in and fired, from the roof, at an army post. Soldiers responded with mortars and machine-gun fire. The rebels ran away.

No one won, and the house was wrecked.

If a single image sums up the war in Syria, my friend's house does the job. Neither the troops nor the insurgents gave a damn about him or his house, and it's not clear how much either cares about the country, either.

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