The pressure on Syria's Bashar al-Assad to step down is now intense: from the United States, from Europe, but also - perhaps more importantly - from his neighbours, including Turkey, and from his fellow Arabs, led by Saudi Arabia.
President Obama and European leaders have been widely criticised for being slow to cut Assad loose and to abandon him.
A large part of their defence until now has been that it is not moral to pledge support to protesters in any country when they face death at the hands of a dictator, unless you mean to back them decisively.
Politicians point to a deep sense of guilt about the encouragement from the West to the Kurds of Northern Iraq in 1990 and 1991 to rise up against Saddam Hussein after his invasion of Kuwait.
It was followed by failure to protect them when the Iraqi dictator wreaked his terrible vengeance.
''Overwhelming force''
The US and its allies still rule out any military intervention in Syria - even to protect civilians - but the new calculation in Washington and major European capitals is that the balance has now tipped against Assad's political survival.
The UN's head of human rights, Navi Pillay, has said the Syrian government may be guilty of crimes against humanity.
In a report, the commissioner said the UN Security Council should consider referring the case to the International Criminal Court. Despite the growing pressure, there are no signs that President Assad is ready to resign.
He has few allies left - and reliance on Iran is unlikely to save him. That is not to say he will not still try to rely on overwhelming force.
It worked for his father before him - but the difference this time is that so few countries now judge that regional stability would be at grave risk if the Assad family finally lost power.
In fact, most governments now take the opposite view - that it is the Assad family which represents present danger.
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