Mike Butler: Syria needs liberal capitalism, not missiles

Syria needs liberal capitalism rather than missiles, according to analysis printed during the week in The Telegraph in London. Allister Heath, who is editor of City A.M., a digital daily business newspaper distributed around London, writes in his weekly Telegraph column:

The economic backdrop to the Arab Spring debacle and now Syria’s barbaric civil war is equally self-evident. With only a small number of exceptions, states in the region have long specialised in economic failure of the most abject kind, seemingly competing to become the most shocking case study in how to squander oil money, ruin a nation’s economy and keep ordinary people impoverished.

Mike Butler: No right to trade in Arab world

The Arab Spring was a demand for freedom, not necessarily democracy, according to British political journalist Fraser Nelson. Mohammed Bouazizi started the so-called Arab spring by burning himself alive on a Tunisian street market two years ago.