Syria's war without end is a triumph for man's inhumanity to man

While some African nations, such as Angola, might be able to give the war-torn state a run for its money, it would have to be a close run thing.

Granted its independence from France, which had ruled the territory since 1920, in 1946, the new republic enjoyed three years of democracy before undergoing three separate coups in 1949.

This marked the beginning of a succession of dictatorships, interspersed with periods of military rule, that continues to the present day.

A loosely defined aggregation of widely disparate peoples, cultures and territories set out under the self-serving Sykes-Picot agreement to carve up the Turkish empire between Britain, France and Russia in 1916, Syria was always going to struggle to achieve unity.

Its population includes Syrian and Palestinian Arabs, Syriac Christians, Syrian Kurds, Assyrians, Circassians, Turkmens, ethnic Greeks and ethnic Armenians to name a few.

The majority Muslim population is predominantly Sunni and Sufi, it also includes a large number of Shia and Alawites.

This unworkable degree of ethnic, religious and cultural diversity has proved a recipe for chaos.

By late 1971 Hafez al-Assad, the father of the current President, Bashar al-Assad, had seized power.

Despite repeatedly proclaiming they were the leaders of a "democratic, popular, socialist state", the al-Assad dynasty proved to be a malign dictatorship prepared to use every available tool, including chemical weapons, against its people.

The regime's talent for fostering opposition bore fruit in March, 2011, during what has come to be called, almost ironically, the Arab spring.

Unlike similar uprisings elsewhere, which saw the governments of Egypt and Libya soon toppled, the Syrian rebellions were inconclusive.

This was due to the fact rebel factions spent as much time fighting each other as they did the al-Assad regime.

When the conflict entered its eighth year last week the Syrian Government held 58 per cent of the country. The SDF held 25 per cent, ISIL held almost six per cent. Just under 11 per cent was held by other rebel groups.

Other players in the conflict, now recognised as a proxy war for foreign powers, include the Russian Federation, a loose alliance of western nations headed by the US, Turkey and Iran.

So much for the politics. What the war really is is a humanitarian catastrophe of devastating proportions.

Almost 500,000 people have been killed or died as a consequence of the fighting. Between seven million and 10 million more have been displaced. This has resulted in the largest refugee crisis the world has known since 1945.

While many in the west would argue the conflict has nothing to do with us and that the Syrians should be left to sort matters out for themselves, they would be as wrong as they are ignorant and inhumane.

European imperialists played a key role in creating this dog's breakfast more than a century ago.

Russia, America, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are just some of the nations still intent on using the conflict to advance their own interests.

Enough is enough. The time has come to stand together and say this suffering and cruelty must be brought to an end.