The Syrian crisis has the ominous tint of Cold war politics topped with vicious religious sectarianism and long standing regional disputes and a parallel covert agenda of oil politics. The extra regional players appear to have got themselves entangled yet again in a situation where they have grossly misjudged the ground reality. Assad's government isn't going to be as easy to topple, as was the case with the others in the region. So what's the way ahead?