"In Syria neither exists!"

"... What this means is that the ability of the Syrian regime to meet the demands of the protestors and the international community in the requisite time frame is slim or none. If the protests miraculously stopped today, maybe the reforms announced to date would develop into something meaningful. Then again, without the internal and external pressure, the regime might dilute the reforms to insignificance or revoke them altogether. After all, Assad has not inspired confidence in terms of his ability -- or even his willingness -- to actually implement reform beyond their mere announcement. Some of this is him, some the inert Syrian system.

Thus, there is not much the Obama administration can do. The U.S. has been trying to squeeze blood from a turnip by pushing for dramatic political reform from a system that simply isn't built for it mechanically or intellectually. And the U.S. has to be careful about intervening more energetically to help the Syrian opposition for fear of discrediting them by attaching a made-in-USA label to it in addition to providing the regime the narrative of threat it has been propagandizing to legitimate the use of force.

"... The weltanschauung prisms are anchored in vastly different experiences, pre-conceptions, local politics, and ideologies, and they have a very hard time seeing and understanding each other..."

In the end, then, there must be a Syrian solution to a Syrian problem. Washington has very little direct leverage on Syria in the short term. The U.S. and EU -- and now some Arab states -- have ratcheted up the pressure incrementally to support the protestors' demands in a way that will hopefully not be counter-productive. It is a difficult balancing act.
The regime seems to have the willpower, incentive, and means to stick around for a while. Unless Assad somehow starts to think outside of his box and head a transitional period of reform, the regime's legitimacy has been so tarnished that it will eventually alienate those remaining bases of support that have kept him in power. Of course, this is unlikely.
Assad's removal will just be a matter of time, longer than many want, but probably more consistent with what will develop in Syria. As Anne Applebaum wrote in her recent article on revolution and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Foreign Policy, for an orderly transition from dictatorship to democracy two elements are crucial: "an elite willing to hand over power, and an alternative elite organized enough to accept it." In Syria neither exists. Will it at some point? Probably not, but it is not out of the realm of possibility, as there are stirrings that something might emerge on both sides of the equation.
Most of us watching from the outside -- those making policy decisions in Washington, at the U.N. or in European capitals -- are from a decidedly different world and conceptual paradigm than the Syrian leadership. To think that we could all get on the same page and collectively find a peaceful way out of this has been more fantasy than reality. .."