The West weighs its options on Syria Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron addresses the House of Commons on Friday on the subject of Syria. In March this year, an international delegation gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New York to commemorate the 25th anniversary of a chemical weapons attack by Saddam Hussein on the Kurdish city of Halabja, in which about 5000 civilians were killed. A concurrent statement from the White House deplored the "terrible crime" and pledged the US National Security Council in "efforts to prevent future atrocities." Victims of the toxic gas attack in Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascas, on August 21. So, too, estimates of up to 1400 deaths from inside Syria, where Medicins sans Frontieres reported about 3000 cases of neurotoxicity in just three hours, confirmed the chemical attack as the largest since Halabja. The audacity of the attack of August 21 was magnified by its timing, coinciding with a visit by UN inspectors to investigate earlier alleged use of chemical weapons in the country's 2-and-a-half-year-old civil conflict. The Assad government has repeatedly denied any role in the most recent event, attributing responsibility to rebel factions in the area. However, most Western leaders were, as British Prime Minister David Cameron stated, left in "no doubt" the Syrian regime alone possessed capabilities for such an assault. "Everyone in Syria expected this attack," says Radwan Ziadeh, a prominent Syrian exile and director of the Washington-based Syrian Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. Originally from the region neighbouring Ghouta, Ziadeh says the systematic cutting off of medical and food supplies to the area for months before the assault served as an indication such an attack was imminent. The lack of supplies was part of the reason the number of people killed was so high," he says. Since the outset of protests in February 2011, the Syrian regime has received unwavering political and military support from its allies Russia and Iran, as well as an open supply of arms and combatants from across the border from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. By contrast, the largely secular and peaceful elements once at the forefront of the pro-democracy uprising have been left relatively unaided. "The Syrian people could have done this by themselves and toppled the regime months ago," says Walid Saffour, UK representative of the Syrian National Coalition, the most prominent international opposition alliance. Bordering Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan, and with strong ties to Iran and a staunch pro-palestinian platform, Syria under the Assad regime has been a nexus in regional political feuds. "One of the main reasons why Western governments have waited so long is pressure from Israel not to change the power dynamics in the region," he explains. Many parties also feared that a change of regime could bring extremist or Islamist groups to power in Syria. It is only now that the regional and international peace is in danger, that chemical weapons have been used and the death toll is more than 100,000 that we are seeing what America can do. Following a meeting on Tuesday between the Syrian National Coalition and Western representatives, including former US ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, the opposition was reportedly told to expect a strike against Assad within days. Discussions between London and Washington, meanwhile, intensified to refine tactics ahead of Britain's House of Commons debate on Thursday, which narrowly voted against military action. The hawkish momentum has subsequently been cooled by Britain's apparent retreat from involvement and the US is yet to indicate its intentions to pursue any more unilateral action. But defence analysts indicate that select military targets have already been named for cruise missile and Tomahawk strikes, focusing on command centres involved in the use of chemical weapons. "They say it will be surgical, very clean," says Tabler, who does not rule out the possibility of mistargeting civilians, especially in Syria's densely populated urban centres. Efforts by Cameron to secure UN backing for any anti-Assad campaign from the five permanent members of the Security Council are expected to be blocked by Russia and China. Within days of the massacre, Russia warned of the "catastrophic consequences" of military action for Syria and the region, with the Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitry Rogozin, accusing the West via Twitter of behaving "like a monkey with a grenade" in its push to intervene in the Muslim world. Echoing the allegation of its fellow Assad backer, Iran claimed that the perilous fallout of Western action "will not be restricted to Syria. It will engulf the whole region. Sobered by these political realities, Western leaders acquiesced to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's plea to allow time for the weapons inspectors to submit findings from their mission, which ends on Saturday. So, too, MPs in Britain, wary of Iraq-style mission creep, public resistance and regional spillover, voiced their opposition to any imminent action. "The West has no appetite or intention for trying to determine the future of Syria according to its own preferences, because it has learnt from Iraq and Afghanistan that things never go to plan," says Rosemary Hollis, professor of Middle East Policy Studies at London's City University. "By retaliating to only the chemical issue there will, of course, be an effect on the dynamics in Syria, which has implications for the external powers," she says. Not least among the unknown perils of intervention is that posed by the embattled Syrian President himself whose ruthlessness has thus far exceeded the worst expectations of Western governments. Indeed, the latest atrocity at Ghouta may be testament to earlier forecasts of Assad's determination to "go down fighting," bringing Syria down with him. Even in the event of the regime's weakening via army defections or strikes crippling its air force, there is little immediate prospect for an end to the conflict. Violent atrocities have been documented on the side of all warring factions, with groups such as Human Rights Watch warning of the "horrifying sectarian violence" starting to engulf the country. Some estimates suggest that as many as 1200 different rebel military units now operate on the ground in Syria, including the Jihadist front Jabhat Nusra and several al-Qaeda affiliates. The political opposition abroad has repeatedly failed on co-ordination and diplomacy, and with questionable support among Syrians inside the country, is in no position to assume leadership in the event of Assad's fall. It is by no means clear that military action by Western governments would spell an end to the hitherto flailing efforts at diplomacy, which have sought to engage Russia, Iran and other key regional players in negotiations alongside the regime. Some cautious advocates of military intervention have pinned faint hopes for peace on this combination of force and diplomacy. A peremptory show of international displeasure, it is suggested, might corner Assad into participating in the stalling Geneva peace talks, which have been canvassed by Russia and the US since May. Recent days saw Assad making conciliatory gestures, inviting a delegation of British MPs to Syria to investigate. But in the face of threats of military action, the regime has maintained its defiant rhetoric. Assad last week proclaimed that "Syria will never become a Western 'puppet' state" and that any American incursion would be greeted with the same failure it met in Vietnam and Iraq. Some see this sabre-rattling as feeble armoury for a failing regime. As Assad alienates himself ever more from his supporters, it is argued he may be compelled to acquiesce to international pressure. "For the first time Assad knows this is serious," says Ghias Aljundi, a journalist and human rights activist who was a victim of the Assad regime before fleeing Syria in the 1980s. The West gave him too many chances to finish off the opposition by turning a blind eye to his atrocity, and he failed. But however difficult the cost-benefit calculation confronting the hand-wringing Western governments, it is clear the most harrowing equation is that facing Syrians themselves. Having witnessed the machinations of Western policy in the region, from the calamitous foray into Iraq to the perceived duplicity of support for Israel and Saudi Arabia, Syrians are by no means naive about espoused humanitarian motives by leaders in Washington and London. From the start of the uprising, Syrians were vocally opposed to foreign interference or Western co-option of their democratic struggle. However, more than 2-and-a-half years of brutality have left few with any alternative vision of a way out of the current nightmare. "The conflict has put Syrians in an extremely difficult situation," says Aljundi. Most of us are in principle against intervention, pacifistic and generally mistrust the Americans. But now we are desperate. Over the past week, Syrians inside the country have expressed anxieties about the fallout of military action, not least fears about the consequences of strikes on chemical weapons facilities. The continued existence of the regime is the only worst option.