Well looks like it's not totally bad to have sectarian assholes like the Saudi royal family around. They and other monarchs will be arming the Syrian opposition with heavy weapons (including anti-tank missiles). By doing this, this is going to effectively topple the Assad regime. With its economy crippled, the Assad regime cannot replace its losses nor take this kind of fighting for a long period of time in my opinion. Also, the Assad regime is a religious/ethnic minority regime oppressing a religious/ethnic majority, so all the oppressed need are weapons. They can take the casualties and replace them relatively easily. Assad can't replace his troops and tanks easily though.

I think this is all about the Sunni vs Shi'ite/Alawite Muslim sectarian struggle. The Saudi royal family are not pure here; they're sons of bitches, just like Assad. The main difference is that the Saudi royal family are practically locked in a cold war with the Shi'ite/Alawite regimes in Iran and Syria.

Regardless, Assad's regime needs to go, he's just like Gaddafi, and a democracy needs to be put in its place.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Gulf...wells_999.html

Britain and Turkey have indicated they wouldn't stand in the way of the Saudis and the gulf states.

Western officials say they haven't detected large-scale weapons transfers to the FSA, which is seeking to forge a cohesive alliance among the fragmented Syrian opposition groups.

But they said the Saudis, who have long been firmly opposed to the Syrian regime founded by Assad's father in 1970, are turning a blind eye to arms purchases for the FSA by opposition Syrian businessmen in the Persian Gulf.

Syrian opposition figures have been reportedly meeting Saudi intelligence chiefs in Turkey and Europe to determine what arms the FSA needs.

Anti-tank missiles to counter the regime's crippling armor reportedly have top priority.

"The decision to arm the rebels has been taken in principle but it has not yet been implemented," said Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Institute of Strategic Studies, a Saudi-funded think tank in Dubai.

Russia and China, Assad's main diplomatic friends after his Iranian allies, have stymied U.N. and Arab League efforts led by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and backed by the West. The breakaway move by the gulf powers may have short-circuited those.

But, at its core, the Saudis' strategy has more to do with the Sunni-Shiite split in Islam, Syria's Alawites being a Shiite offshoot, and countering Iran than anything else. And in the long run, that religious fissure is probably more deep-rooted and enduring than any other factor concerning Syria.

There are wider considerations for the Americans. They've found that on the geostrategic level the conflict tearing apart a longtime opponent who has frequently stymied U.S. policy in the Middle East has other benefits.

The Saudis and their partners are increasingly at odds with Moscow and Beijing, who have blocked international initiatives Damascus didn't like.

That suits the Americans just fine. They've been alarmed at the diplomatic gains Russia and China, eyes on the gulf's oil, have been making in the Middle East of late, mostly at the United States' expense.

"Taking advantage of the profound sense of insecurity and alienation sweeping the Saudi regime, the United States is about to realize the dream project of shepherding the GCC states into its global missile defense architecture," observed veteran regional analyst M. K. Bhadrakumar.

The gulf states, long-riven by historical dynastic rivalries, had balked at working together on missile defense until the Iranian threat began to loom large in recent years.

Now, Bhadrakumar noted, "geopolitically the arc of the United States' global missile defense system extending from Central Europe through Turkey is Â… poised to take a leap across the Middle East to graze the waters of the Indian Ocean.

"In sum, Washington ties in the oil-rich Persian Gulf and can always revisit the crisis in Syria in due course."