It was interesting to spend a few days in South Africa last week and to hear some different perspectives from the media and from those I met with about the resignation of Kofi Annan and the unfolding developments in Syria. The Western media has been lamenting how the protection of civilians in Syria has been cruelly thwarted by the pesky Russians who are determined to maintain a naval base on the Mediterranean. Those I spoke with in Johannesburg were not lacking in compassion for the innocent victims in Syria, but they were much more critical about what they perceived as the duplicity and double standards of Western Governments.

The West is perceived to be seeking to topple an authoritarian regime in Syria not because of any commitment to the human rights of people in Syria, but because of a desire to weaken Iran. Several people pointed out to me that alongside a public strategy of blaming Russia the West has been quietly supporting the efforts of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to arm opposition groups in Syria. Bizarrely this means that the West is supporting the arming and engagement in Syria of the same extremist forces which are killing their own soldiers in Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia is a brutal, corrupt, misogynist, dictatorship. But the West describes their rulers as moderate and ignores Saudi Arabia's invasion of Bahrain to crush pro-democracy activists. And then the West facilitates Saudi Arabia arming and funding extremists in Libya and now Syria. Not to mention the Saudi role in supporting violent extremism in Afghanistan, Iraq and the North Caucasus.

Sadly the Syrian civil war is becoming at least partly a proxy conflict. This exacerbates sectarian divisions and is likely to prolong the suffering and make less likely an outcome that ensures respect for the rights of all Syrians. The best hope is that the regime collapses quickly and Syrians find the space to negotiate and decide their own future peacefully. And as a Palestinian human rights defender said, "hope is a strategic necessity."