atrocious behaviour making a negotiated retention of some portion of its own power -- which might have been possible at the outset -- ever more impossible. Second, the lack of international confidence in the opposition SNC or any other leadership group as a strong, united and moderate negotiating partner. And third, the continuing lack of unity among the key international players as to the form any negotiated outcome might take. --  As to military options, on which attention is inevitably refocusing as the body count from atrocity crimes continues to grow and with it the sense that something more substantial must be done, the trouble is that there are immense problems with every possible course of action: Supplying arms to the rebels -- the simplest option and one already happening from some of the neighbours but not the major Western powers --  runs the real continuing risk, of which there is plenty of evidence already, of them being diverted into the hands of exrremist Islamist groups. External military intervention on the ground with the notionally limited objective of carving out buffer zones or safe havens or food and medical supply routes would -- except in the wholly unlikely event of acquiescence by the Syrian military -- rapidly lead rapidly lead to full-scale war, with all the even further escalation in suffering this would inevitably involve. And enforcement of a no-fly zone over the whole, or even just parts, of the country, which would on the face of it neutralize the