THERE is something very disquieting about the global reaction to events in Syria.

Earlier this week the United Nations' human rights chief Navi Pillay pointed out in a BBC interview there was reliable information that President Bashar al Assad's regime was systematically detaining and torturing children as part of its crackdown on opposition within the country.

What Ms Pillay outlined was horrendous, and included children who had been shot in the knees, some detained with adults in inhumane conditions and denied medical treatment for their wounds.

In the wake of her remarks, what followed was a disappointing deluge of comments on news websites that was very telling of what many people think about the idea of international intervention in the Syria conflict.

Many of the comments I read were from people who believed Ms Pillay was nothing more than a propagandist and bit-part player in a warmongering western conspiracy designed to lure us into another Middle Eastern war.

Give us the evidence that such atrocities exist, they demanded, as if what we are faced with in Syria is a dubious re-run of the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proposition regarded by many as the con that took us to war in Iraq.

In the wake of the Iraq experience it's understandable there should be profound scepticism about the motives put forward by Western political leaders for intervening in any Middle East crisis – not that Ms Pillay was proposing any such course of action.

Having covered the revolutions in Egypt, Libya and now Syria, at times I've frankly been amazed at how predictably one-dimensional the counter-arguments to humanitarian intervention invariably are.

Almost always, they are near obsessionally and simplistically couched in terms of the West only really being interested and driven by its insatiable thirst for oil or some latter-day imperialistic determination to exert control over the Arab world.

I need no convincing about the insidious role oil has played in the West's foreign policy decision-making in the Middle East. Occasionally, though, the one-dimensional conspiracy theorists might do themselves a favour if they tried to look beyond this.

In doing so they need cast their gaze no further than the ongoing power struggle at the Arab League Summit convened in Baghdad yesterday. Even the most cursory examination of the tensions there reveal that besides petrol, there are other equally – if not more – powerful factors shaping the outcome of the Syrian crisis and wider Middle East.

At the heart of this battle lies rifts along sectarian lines, where Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Arab Gulf rivals tussle for influence.

Sunni-led Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar remain determined to break Syria out of its alliance with Iran and talk increasingly of arming the Syrian rebels to fight Assad's forces.

Other non-Gulf Arab states however, such as Algeria, Egypt and Iraq's Shi'ite-led Government are more cautious, fearing that toppling Assad could see those sectarian tensions spark into full-blown violence.

An insight into Qatar's thinking on the Syrian crisis was summed up yesterday by the prime minister of the tiny, energy-rich nation. "We are faced with a difficult choice, either we stand by the Syrian people or stand by him (Assad)," said Sheik Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, adding it would be a "disgrace to all of us if the sacrifices of the Syrian people go to waste".

And there lies the nub of the matter. Those who believe Ms Pillay's comments about Assad's regime targeting children are nothing but propaganda will probably go on thinking that way.

But from what I witnessed during a recent visit to the Syria-Turkey border there are no doubts about the degree of suffering experienced by innocent civilians in this conflict.

Calls for Syria to bring a ceasefire, and vocal support for UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan is one thing, implementing it is something else.

While the Arab League bickers in Baghdad, and the West worries itself into diplomatic impotence, the killing and atrocities go on. Unpalatable as the thought is, I can't help thinking those Syrians brave enough to have stood up to Assad's dictatorship are disgracefully being left well and truly on their own.