The sharp increase in arms supplies, funding and technical support from the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and others has dramatically boosted the rebels' fortunes, as well as the death toll.

As Saudi Arabia steps up its support for the insurgents in Syria, the tensions with Iran rise and there's growing dissent from the Shiite minority at home.

The US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey have established a secret base near the Syrian border to help direct vital military and communications support to Assad's opponents.

Whatever our humanitarian concerns,a US decision to send fighter-jets or bombers or even ground troops to Syria, won't be because Washington is suddenly worried about Syrian civilians.

"In our expanded drone war, one former national security official comments: "What's happening is that we're using the technology to target people we never would have bothered to capture."

Somalia is an example of how, after a decade of ground combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama administration is trying to achieve US military goals with minimal risk of American deaths.

Syrians should hope and pray they are lucky, like Iraq, to have an occupying military force — America — that "everyone on the ground" trusts to "manage the transition."

It has been revealed that UK personnel controlled armed drones in Libya last year – despite the repeated government insistence that the UK has only ever operated armed drones in Afghanistan.

"Special forces advisers working alongside rebel commanders, with air support on call, "could be tactically and strategically decisive, as it proved in Afghanistan and Libya."

According to the New York Times, the Obama administration hopes support for the Syrian opposition from the United States, Arab governments and Turkey will tip the balance.

If sanctions, arming of the opposition and dispatch of spies and supplies fail, Syria's 'friends' will rely on the armed oppositions' narrative to demand that the US launch an invasion.

“This is not the new Libya we fought for and we may have to take up arms again if the corruption and greed continue. This time against the new government.”

Many of those in the Syrian opposition calling for military intervention are interlinked with the US and London – the very people who would be doing the intervening.

Will a new government legitimised by the ballot box be able to rein in the militias and re-establish law and order? Or will the militiamen continue to jail, torture and kill with impunity?

With al-Qaida officially declaring war on the Syrian regime, the de facto US-Saudi-al-Qaida-Israeli marriage of convenience against the anti-US "crescent" is quite startling.

Western governments are continuing to pour petrol onto the Syrian conflict while talking the language of peace and democracy and their desire to 'stop the bloodshed'.