The decision of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Co-operation to suspend Syria is largely symbolic of the anger of the international community, including the Muslim countries, over the brutality that the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al Assad has unleashed on the people.

According to OIC General Secretary Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the decision is “a strong message from the Muslim World to the Syrian regime.”

“This world can no longer accept a regime that massacres its people using planes, tanks and heavy artillery,” he told reporters in Makkah, where the OIC met and took the decision to suspend Syria’s membership in the group.

It was “also a message to the international community stating that the Muslim world backs a peaceful solution (in Syria), wants an end to the bloodshed and refuses to let the problem degenerate into a religious conflict and spill over” into the wider region, Ihsanoglu said.

According to US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, the OIC action “underscores the Assad regime’s increasing international isolation and the widespread support for the Syrian people and their struggle for a democratic state that represents their aspirations and respects their human rights.”

It is a lofty statement that means little to the people of Syria, who are subjected to daily massacres carried out by the regime’s forces. Millions remain under siege, with little access to food and relief as Assad loyalists are going by town by town with their reign of terror.

The reality is that the world community has not been able to take realistic action to end the crisis even nearly 18 months after pro-democracy activists launched a rebellion against the Assad regime. The rulers of Damascus could not care less about international intervention and isolation as long as they are assured that its allies Russia and China would block effective UN Security Council action against the regime by using their veto powers.

The Arab League suspended Syria last year, but that had little practical effect on Damascus, which continued its bloodshed arguing that the rebellion was a plot by Western and rival powers to overthrow the regime.

In the face of the Russian and Chinese rejection of any realistic UN action against the Assad regime, the US and allies are backing what is effectively a covert war in Syria.

However, the campaign’s pace is slow and it would be a protracted process before the situation is contained and a solution found to the crisis.