So is it all over for the Syrian opposition? Prof Landis says that „it will be very hard for those that live in exile to maintain a serious military option in the future so long as Syria‘s neighbours are unwilling to sponsor them and provide them safe havens as they were in the past.

„Of course,“ he notes, „millions of Syrian opposition members now living as refugees or outside the country revile Putin and Russia and continue to look to Western governments to destroy the Syrian regime and return them to their country.