Blake Hounshell and Josh Rogin examine the options for the international community "if the bloodshed continues to escalate throughout the holy month of Ramadan, as many expect it will":
[Salman Shaikh, head of the Brookings Doha Center] argues for a hard push at the Security Council to hold an escalating swath of Syrian officials accountable for the slaughter. "I don't see how else we're going to get these people to take notice," he says. Shaikh also advocates putting together an informal "contact group" of concerned countries — as with Libya — with a core group perhaps consisting of the United States, France, Qatar, and Turkey. But the all-important Turks, who share a border with Syria and have hosted thousands of refugees and several opposition meetings, are still hedging their bets. …
The European Union did announce fresh sanctions on Monday, with asset freezes and travel bans on five additional Syrian officials, but harsher measures that [the Washington Institute's Andrew Tabler] argues could really damage the regime — targeting the oil and gas revenues that help keep the Syrian government afloat — are so far off the table. The United States already maintains unilateral sanctions against the Syrian regime and top figures within it, but more could be done to choke off its sources of income, says Tabler.
Syrians aren't holding their collective breath. "We can't really expect much from the international community," says Jabri, and most Syrians are wary of external involvement in their struggle.
Fadwa al-Hatem worries that Syria is slowly becoming Libya, while Jacob Heilbrunn somewhat absurdly suggests the similarities might extend down to another US intervention.
The Dish 