A year and a half into the Syrian crisis, events are being driven by calculations that are not entirely under American control. Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have acquired their own agendas too. And they are poised to engage fully in the ongoing war in Syria.

The procedure is, first, for the UN to announce that Kofi Annan has failed, and to blame that on the Syrian regime. The issue will then be referred back the Security Council. The moment Russia blocks a resolution endorsing an international free-for-all against Syria, these countries will declare that they are obliged, by moral imperative and public pressure, to take direct action without delay.

That is when the plans which they have been preparing for the past few months are to be put into effect. They entail assuming full trusteeship over the Syrian people by tightening their hold over the offshore Syrian opposition and, in particular, the armed opposition groups. Work is currently underway to link these groups to each other under a joint command overseen by the armed forces of these countries, and to supply them with new kinds of sophisticated arms. We will see weapons taken out of the Gulf states’ vast stockpiles for tests on Syrian soil, and an armed popular revolution proclaimed.