Why can't Assad go into exile in Mother Russia, let the VPs take over, get a UN peacekeeping force in place to tamp down the drama....and then have all parties sit down at the table and do a little diplomacy, maybe try for some power sharing?

Why go looking for war when there's a peaceful solution possible?

they will seek to befriend the Syrian Free Army as Russia does not want a Theocratic Syrian State that may look to support Muslim activists in Russian Territory and they do want the use of Syria's port.

Hezbollah is centered in Lebanon and are in Syria to support the Ba'ath government. They don't have a power base in Syria, and since from all I've read the Jordanians are not happy having their people dying in Syria, I suspect they would go home.

Israel will dance, but will not get involved. No rebel group wants them and whoever comes in power will be as antagonistic toward Israel as the current government.

Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon (you forgot them) are being crushed by the need to feed and house refugees from Syria. I suspect that they will be trying to push all the refugees back across the border, but they don't want to be involved militarily.

Iran is allied with the Assad and his tribe. If Assad falls I suspect they will withdraw, since their alliance is with the Baath government. They will support any Sunni rebel group, but probably not with Republican Guard Units.

Like Russia, the USA would prefer to see a secular government, so will back the Syrian Free Army. There is no taste for combat here in the good old US of A, and if the Syrian government falls, even if they have violated the UN Resolution (should it pass) combat will be moot since the government it was passed against is history. Look for the CIA, Seals, and other types to continue to work with the Syrian Free Army.

Saud i's do not want an Iranian allied government in Syria, so they would back the Syrian Free Army.

Egypt has so many problems of its own at home that they are not going to be involved in any major way.

France will not be involved in any major way, nor will NATO.

With two Rebel forces, it is quite possible that Syria will become a failed state for awhile, with each force controlling certain parts of the country.

No one but the rebels will engage in the conflict, and if they can not reach an accommodation, you will see Syria look a lot like Somalia.

Yes, Lebanon will be impacted, willingly or not. (edited)

Interesting news story today about Lebanese army going into Hezbollah neighborhoods to provide security from a series of bombings that are presumed to be anti-Hezbollah in motive and in reaction to Hezbollah involvement in Syria. Fighting between factions in one country over each's view of/interests in a civil war in an adjacent country really suggests how destabilizing these things can be.

It will be a very protracted battle, ethnic cleansing is going to happen, and it will be several decades before the smoke clears.

It is not going to be pretty.

If they've dug up Kissinger to play nihilistic chess with the Russians, they're looking for "detente."

But the CIA will (continue to) be there, at the very least. We are apparently determined to try to control the destiny of yet another unstable country, so that our betters can make heaps of cash somehow.

Oh, and because "national security" and so forth.

Best we can hope for is Obama's led zeppelin of an appeal for a hot war has killed that option for good.

The terrorist factions?
and what happens to Lebanon? (Bye bye, lebanon....)

I still thnk we are going in, we just will find another excuse. It may be delayed a few months, but we will attack.