The brutal war in Syria has now been raging on for over two years. The UN is estimating a death toll of around 93,000 and now reports are coming in of alleged chemical weapons use by both the Syrian government and the rebels. 'Hawks' across the world including in the USA and UK are now pushing for some sort of intervention. The USA has already crossed the 'intervention line' by declaring that they will be providing arms to the Syrian rebels. But is this a wise decision? Do we know who these arms are going to? For all we know, and as recent events have shown, intervention in Syria will have adverse effects in the future, not just for Syria but for the whole region and the wider world. The main worry of arming these rebels is simply that we do not know who they are. Groups like the 'Al-Nusra Front' which align themselves to Al-Qaeda and frequently resort to terrorist tactics, as we see on the news when Damascus is attacked by suicide bombers. Islamist groups, which we fight in Afghanistan, Yemen, Mali and those we fought in Iraq are not nationalists and they are not confined to international borders. They do manage a way into war zones where there may be a misplaced call for 'Jihad'. So for all we know, we might end up fighting them in one country and supporting them in another. Extremist groups are on the rise in Syria whether we like it or not and sending arms over to them will not help the cause of 'freedom and democracy' in Syria. To name a few other extremist groups, like the 'Syrian Islamic Liberation Front', 'Syrian Islamic Front' and the 'Ghuraba al-Sham' who have co-ordinated with Al-Nusra and are making better gains than any secular force out there, that is to say if there is any left. Supplying weapons to rebels will definitely mean supplying arms to terrorists and even if some rebels do care about freedom and democracy, they are outnumbered and out-gunned by those rebels who are battle hardened veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq to name a few. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is supposedly the main body of rebel fighters in Syria and it should symbolise the fight for freedom and democracy. The unfortunate truth, as hinted in the previous paragraph is that the FSA and the Syrian National Council are just a bunch of frivolous, disunited and bickering men who do not seem to be major stake holders. They also lose alot of their credibility as these seemingly democratic loving fighters are mostly funded by authoritarian states in the Gulf. Even if the current Syrian government were to be overthrown, and even if the FSA were to become major stakeholders in this, they would not just be able to oust the extremists amongst them, as the extremist organisations do make up a good bulk of the opposition forces. The civil war is also becoming increasingly Sectarian. It seems that the Shia-Sunni schism that has plagued the Middle East for years has made Syria the latest victim. Under the Assad government, before the so called 'Arab Spring', the ruling government dominated by the Alawites of the Shia sect kept Syria united. The Shias, Sunnis, Christians and other groups largely coexisted but this has now vanished. The Alawites and Christians now feel increasingly under threat from reprisals by extremist organisations while the Sunnis feel that they have been discriminated against by the current government. Getting involved in a sectarian conflict on the side of one of these groups will fuel hatred towards us from the other side. Lessons from past interventions should also be learnt. In the 1980's, the USA through Pakistan provided military aid to the Mujahideen against Soviet military presence in Afghanistan. Today, NATO troops are present in Afghanistan fighting the same people. Again in the 1980's, we supported the regime of Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war. As a result of his loss in the war and the following economic crisis in Iraq, Saddam decided to invade and annex Kuwait, leading to the first Gulf War. The most recent example can be Libya. NATO air strikes helped the rebels get rid of Gaddafi, but in September 2012, the US consulate in Benghazi was attacked and four US diplomatic personnel were killed. An intervention in Syria can also have unforeseen consequences in the future. This is not to say that the Assad government are saints, but we must remember that the rebels are also not saints if and when we decide to arm them, for those weapons can in the future be used against us. The only small chance of stopping the violence is through talks occurring without pre-conditions.