US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to the Gulf to devise a change in strategy to counter Syrian President Bashar Al Assad comes at a critical juncture.

International efforts aimed at building the pressure on the regime are on the rise in the face of Assad’s refusal to halt his forces’ unbridled violence even after agreeing to UN Special Envoy Kofi Annan’s six-point peace plan. Assad’s false sense of security may well misfire, given how he blatantly exploits every peaceful overture to end the conflict that has, to date claimed almost 10,000 lives.

Iraq’s position at the recent regional summit may have been against the arming of the Syrian opposition groups but this is not a view shared by others. Other regional states have been in favour of arming the opposition forces because of their lack of hope in Assad.

They feel that the longer this malaise is allowed to fester the worse it will get for the civilians who have borne the brunt. William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary has, in fact, announced a doubling of non-military aid to the opposition. The £500,000 is for opposition activists and journalists inside and outside Syria.

Britain’s position along with other Western and also regional states —even those who are not in favour of arming the opposition — clearly spells out whose side the international community is on. Implementation of Annan’s peace plan is the only thing that may help Assad in the long run even if he exits office. What Assad must realise is that using repressive measures to quell violence has been a fatal mistake and has lost him not regional as well as international support, so much so that it has become impossible to even contemplate accommodating him in a changed political setup once the fighting stops.

For Assad it is clearly now a battle of will and force to see who lasts the longest. So far, he has been lucky that there has been a lack of heart and consensus in the international community about exercising the option of military intervention. But with the situation deteriorating by the day, especially in the face of the government’s repeated failure to implement all previous and current truce proposals, the day is not far when it may possibly happen.

The most prudent thing is for Assad to implement the truce and start political negotiations with the help of international mediaters before it gets too late.