An interview UK Prime Minister David Cameron gave to the BBC on July 21, “shows just how far [he] has rowed back from his previous bullish calls for action,” writes BBC world affairs correspondent Emily Buchanan, after the premier said he was no longer in favour of arming the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

After calling on US President Barack Obama to make the Syrian civil war a priority and later demanding the EU to review the arms embargo for Syrian rebels, the PM’s enthusiasm for intervention has decreased as more evidence has come to light of the role of extremists among the rebel forces, she continues.

It's unlikely that arming the rebels could now be passed through Parliament with dozens of Conservative MPs opposed. Although the prime minister still wants to help moderate forces, how that can be achieved is far from clear. He called the conflict a stalemate. With Russia still supporting President Assad, so too it seems is western policy on Syria.

As for German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, it describes "a breath-taking about face". For months, writes the paper, the British prime minister "called on every facet of the art of diplomacy" to lift the European embargo on arms supplies to Syrian rebels. "This affair could be interpreted as a lack of forethought on Cameron's part" but in reality it only reveals who is actually blocking the EU's political consensus in Europe, says FAZ.

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Without hesitation the British government destroyed the European consensus on EU policy towards Syria once it did not suit its interests any more. For years, two guilty parties have been designated when there are discussions as to why EU foreign policy and common security issues do not function properly: Catherine Ashton and Germany [...] But there are the demands of two other major countries that contribute to the diplomatic destitution of Brussels. The United Kingdom and France like to demand a strong, collective European voice, but for them that means that their interests will be followed by the other 26 members of the EU.

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