If Christian America, the UK and the rest of Nato arm the Sunni rebels, it becomes a full-blown sectarian war, with the West then becoming an acceptable target for radical Shi'ite martyrs who will target civilians and key infrastructure like rail, power, refineries, and even nuclear plants. And Salafist and Wabbabi Saudi Arabia and Qatar oil fields and oil terminals might also become little more than flame spewing and twisted metal remnants of a pre-sectarian war times. The worldwide economic collapse to become part of this religious war, will also hammer the Israeli economy, among other things.

the latest wins by the shia coalition is a strategic defeat for the united states and its western allies. the real victors are iran and russia. although no one wants sunni jihadists to get a foot hold in syria, a win by shia jihadists who benefit from state sponsored terror of iran and its proxy hezbollah would be a catastrophe for western interests. obama's lack of clear strategic goals in this conflict have gravely undermined us national interests and those of us allies in the region.

Assad is fighting back prolonging this and the longer it goes on and more destruction the better for Israel. The more of Assad's weapons are wasted on a civil war rather than Israel. Hezbollah fighters are not getting themselves killed in Syria rather than preparing for another war with Israel in Lebanon. Fighters coming from Iraq which will mean less terrorists in Iraq destabilising there. If Iran is involved they have another headache to worry about. Best of all if Assad does survive this war then even the far left in Israel will have to stop calling for us to give up the Golan. If Assad falls eventually there are going to be calls from America and Israel's left to give the Golan to the new regime to show Israel is committed to peace with Syria and was want to strengthen help get the moderates in power because when it comes to the US and Israels left are concerned security doesn't matter one bit all that matters is collecting more Nobel Peace Prizes. What must not happen is Obama give weapons to rebels which will eventually fall into terrorist hands probably being used against Israel.

Should Assad prevail, it will be another failure of Israeli intelligence as well as Obamas miscalculation. Israel intelligence seems to be stuck on stupid. A house cleaning is in order.

a win for assad would be a win for iran, hezbollah and russia. israel will never give away the golan regardless of who is in charge in syria.

I would take Minister Steinmitz's comments about the Assad regime in Syria with a heavy dose of skepticism. Considering his optimistic and misleading statements about Israel's economy, whan he was finance minister, I wouldn't attach too much credibilty to any of his predictions or analysis about Syria's war.

Equally, zf....Were Assad to prevail thanks to back up from Iran, Russia Hezbollah and Shia Iraqis - he might get a little cocky with Israel. Whoever comes out on top, Israel needs to keep on her toes.

..decide to do,rest assured it will be wrong...he hasn't gotten anything right yet.

due to Russian involvement in supporting and rearming the Syrians, the dysfunctional opposition is doomed to a horrendously painful and violent end. the anti-assad Syrians should have fully understood the consequences of opposing assad before foolishly engaging themselves behind a bunch of unknown and dysfunctional power grabbers like the so-called opposition 'rebels'.

A simplistic "These are the good guys/they are the bad guys" analysis about Syria right now will not suffice. The supreme goal remains to stabilize the country and to mitigate the violence. The focus and background work on the proposed Geneva II Conference will help to shift the dynamic. Syria is a vital piece of the Middle East jigsaw puzzle. A no fly zone and/or outside military intervention are not good options at the moment. The sovereignty of the country must be respected. Prayers for Syria.

Hope all's well with you in Canada : )

Neither side of the Syrian conflict is our friend. It's a good idea for US and allies to help the Sunnis right now, to deny Assad and his allies the opportunity to win. US should not give them enough help prevail, but enough to do damage to Hezbollah and continue the bloodletting. If history of Lebanon is any indication, the fight in Syria could drag on for another quarter of a century. So long as neither side achieves a decisive victory, it's all good. Let's keep them busy. In retrospect, the West should have never allowed the Iran-Iraq war to stop.

Dispatch nude IDF girls to replace the "lost" Austrian UN observers. They could then "moon" the Sryians just down the road. That should stop the Syrians from killing each other for at least a minute or two !! Problem solved !!!