Defense chiefs from the members of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS were meeting Tuesday in Bamako to discuss military options, said a spokesman for the bloc, Sunny Ugoh.
While this might appear to mark a setback for Syria, it has made some important compensatory gains in its relations with the US, Europe and Saudi Arabia, and it is debatable whether Syria's security interests would necessarily have been served by a result enhancing the position of Hizbullah, the Iranian-backed Shia political and military movement that was the driving force of the March 8th opposition bloc.
Add all these constituencies up, and they amount to a pretty sizable voting bloc for any presidential candidate who is willing to throw money at the military.