While the bogeyman in Damascus might well fancy a pop at Akro, I fail to see how that could possibly assist his continued survival. Would that not invoke a NATO response of quite some significance, which would rather defeat the object - if there is one ?
"...The members agreed that an armed attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all..."
I find myself wondering if there's an element of 'Good cop - bad cop' in play, for if M. Assad finds he wants an 'out', I'm confident he'd rather have Britain as an intermediary than someone from China or Russia.....and so might his wife.
This is getting close to the last opportunity for Bashir al-Assad to cut a deal, and I do hope he's rather more rational than Gaddafi.