The sad truth is that Bashar Al-Assad will most likely hold onto power, he has too many strong geo political allies, both Russia, China & Iran are backing the regime, which is why you haven't seen any NATO intervention like you did in Lybia.

The first thing the Russians did when the crisis unfolded was send battle cruisers into Syrian waters to send a strong message to the west. China & Russia have also been vetoing UN Security Council Resolutions that would allow for any punative action against Syria. Finally Iran has been supplying the Syrian government with aid & arms, and strategic military advise.

The west is indebted & broke, and there is no will amongst the American people to endure another Iraq. Bashar Al-Assad will win the day.

If they had what it takes to kill him, dont you think they would already do so long ago?

Well who is going to jump in? And for what reason should they?

You and I both know anyone on the political left will scream bloody murder about "warmongering" if one civilian is killed. You know thats going to happen. I can't mention Obama on this site without some self-righteous jackass screaming about drone strikes.

This coupled with the US's militaristic overreach and no one in the region asking for our help, we're not going in. So who's military is going to do the job?

France and Britain jumped on the Mali situation and people started murmurs of being dragged into another long-war. Furthermore, I'm not up on the specific policies of Hollande, but as a Socialist I assume he's anti-war, pro world-worker.

Russia has too many business deals with Iran, and China has a non-interventionist policy. So you're not getting any help.

Dancing with the Stars.

Do you wanna get shot for Syria? I feel bad for their situation, but I'm certainly not willing to get myself killed over some civil war that's none of my business to be getting involved in in the first place. And if I'm not willing to die for that then it would be selfish for me to expect others to do so in my place.

I think you need to vote for the "I dont care what will happen to him" option. Fits you perfectly.

They do imo, its just a case of how the army will continue to support the Assad regime. There was a similiar situation with Ceausescu in Romania in the late 1980s and much more recently with Gaddafi, the two things they have in common here is that both dictatorships gradually lost the support of large segments of their armed forces. For this reason alone, I would've thought that Assad would have learnt that political concessions are the best way to ensure his survival.

I agree with a lot of your points, but I think his hold on power is far less secure than you believe, as I said above, it depends on which way the army swings. They either remain loyal to the regime or go with the calling of the people, the romance of the second option is a strong magnet.

Not really, these things don't happen overnight. Just think of it as having intercourse.......the climax could come at any time or it might never come!

When anybody jumps in, it's normally for economic reasons under the guise of saving human lives or securing the stability of the zone to prevent the unrest spreading further. The problem that we have here is threefold. Firstly, the European powers won't go into somewhere like Syria without US leadership, it's too big a deal. Secondly, Syria comes under Russia's zone of influence, so the best we're going to get are the UN. Thirdly, the 'Arab Spring' has really run its course and is possibly now in its later stages, so there's no real hope of preventing regional unrest, the river has already broken its banks.

Isreal would love to, but I think Turkey would be the military power most capable of achieving its goal, but this would prove to be a calamity as far as the region goes, as Turkey is pretty much hated by most of its neighbours. For these reasons Syria's problem will need to be sorted out internally, which means more massacres and eventually a bloody end for Assad!

France are there under the request of the Mali government and Britain in some kind of pro-European brotherly love are there now to support them. This is strange considering the anti-EU stance in the British papers at the moment, but I guess it's also a subtle message to Argentina over the Falklands rift, that Britain will defend territories a long way from home and not shirk from obligations.

Sure he's anti-war but I guess he believes some eggs need to be broken to achieve a better world.

Do you think someone should go in, Unknown? Also, by "sorted out internally" I assume you mean the rebels will have to kill Assad, right?

Well if they have the appropriate weapons/rockets to kill him, and they know where he is(which is in the presidential palace if Im not mistaken), wouldnt they do so long ago? Or at least, attempt to do so long ago?

Im not psychic but I think it's pretty obvious that all the protesters in Syria have in mind right now is to either kill him or oust him(Bashar Al-Assad).

I think the only people that should go in are the UN who in theory are the only acceptable solution but after the old Yugoslavia debacle amongst others public opinion here at least, largely sees them as a waste of time, so in practice I don't know how good they would do. As I'm generally anti-war, it pains me to say that the only other option would be to include the predicatable international force, but any force I feel would need to be made up of other Arab states and have approval from Russia. Which I don't see happening, so I think Syria will need to deal with this internally.

But it's not always as simple as this, there has probably been quite a few attempts on his life already that we just don't know about. As I said on an earlier post, when these dictators are killed by the mob, its normally after large sections of the army have gone over to the rebels rather than a perfectly executed asssassination attempt. So no it doesn't surprise me at all that he's not dead.

If the rebels after all the known assassination attempts havent managed to kill him yet, its probably more because of the tight security surrounding him or his presidential palace, which leads to the fact that they probably dont have what it takes to kill him yet. Thats why it requires a bodyguard's desire to kill him for an assassination to succeed.