President Obama has finally and most reluctantly agreed to arm the Syrian rebels. But he is still clinging to the Geneva 2 conference as the most preferred option. David Ignatius writing in the Washington Post Thursday June 20th said that President Obama doesn't have a strategy and is still playing for a negotiated diplomatic transition.

Nehad Ismail argues in this article that it is not the use of Sarin gas or chemical weapons that has led to the sudden change of strategy. It is the direct intervention by Iran and Hezbollah in the conflict on the Bashar al Assad's side and the routing of the rebels in Qusair which alarmed the US administration, and was the catalyst for the change. If this success is repeated elsewhere that would be the end of the revolution and a major victory for the Moscow, Tehran and Damascus alliance.