Contra Lynch and El Amrani, Anne-Marie Slaughter believes it's time to start talking about an intervention in Syria:
Openly raising the possibility of armed intervention does not mean that intervention is bound to occur. Much of the diplomatic activity to date has been aimed at getting Assad's supporters — particularly the Sunni business community of Damascus and Aleppo — to rethink their allegiances. It is a game of perceptions and assumptions, whereby the international community has tried to make Assad's fall seem inevitable and Assad himself has made clear that he will not be cowed into leaving or making real concessions.
Injecting the possibility of armed intervention to protect opposition protesters into this mix, with the accompanying prospect of a much longer and much more destructive conflict in which more members of the military could defect to the Free Syrian Army, could tip this domestic political balance in favor of a negotiated deal and put real internal pressure on Assad. It is still true, however, that the credible threat of force requires an actual willingness to make good on that threat.
Daniel Solomon complicates Slaughter's case.
(Video: Protestors in Hama chant "we want a no fly zone" and other pro-intervention slogans.)
The Dish 