Presumably Putin has not delivered the S-300s because Israel have had a quiet word with him explaining what would happen next. They won't tolerate a new threat in the area that could operate in a big slice of their own airspace.
This is becoming more and more a proxy war. With Iran supporting Assad and Hezbollah on the Shia side and Saudi and Qatar supporting the FSA and the Salafists on the Sunni side.
The large scale involvement of Hezbollah seems to have turned the current tide in favour of Assad who is using them, along with air power, to do some substantial ethnic cleansing of Sunnis out of Alawite areas. The Sunni's are responding by bombarding Hezbollah areas in the Lebanon. So we are getting a regional conflict. Israel will strike against Hezbollah every time they think strategy dictates that they must.
We should definitely not get involved in any way or form. Neither side occupies the moral high ground. Over 100 Brits are in Syria fighting with the Salafists, getting training and radicalisation, this they will bring back to the UK with them and cause much trouble. MI6 should be acting directly against these individuals.
Turkey complicates things. Till now they have been incredibly supportive of the Syrian opposition, acting as a conduit for weapons and training, as well as putting Patriots along the border. However they did not react when the Syrians shot down their Phantom. The current disturbances could distract the Turkish government away from the Syrian issue and if the army take over they would probably be likewise distracted. Or maybe they would be more hawkish.
Certainly we live in interesting times, with no outcome certain and with events certain to be very unpredictable. The biggest real danger to us is Syrian chemical weapons finding their way to the West for fundamentalist terrorist use. Followed by the danger of MANPADs being used at Western airports.
Last edited by Eclectic; 4th Jun 2013 at 15:36.