S

yrian President Bashar al-Assad may have taken his cue from Winston Churchill — who wrote that “dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not to dismount” — in desperately clinging to power by killing as many people as they need to.

Or they may have seen the humiliation former Egypt strongman Hosni Mubarak is going through at the hands of the people he once led for over 30 years. Or they might be inspired by Libya leader Muammar Qaddafi, who is also killing his own people and has virtually split the nation in two to resist pressures to step down.

Unlike Qaddafi, who faces an armed resistance, Assad is dealing with mostly unarmed and peaceful demonstrators who were initially calling for political reforms, but now nothing short of his resignation.

Rather than silencing the protesters, Assad’s gun has brought more Syrians into the streets. The death toll, meanwhile, is rising by the day, with estimates ranging from between 1,700 and 2,000 since the protests began in March.

There has not even been a respite during Ramadhan, with Assad’s army going on the offensive. On Friday the military was deployed in full force with tanks, armored cars and gunboats to confront protesters in several towns. The BBC quoted activists as reporting that 16 people were killed.

With the country virtually closed off to foreign journalists, it is difficult to know what is really happening inside Syria. But what little credible information becomes available suggests a horrifying mass murder is taking place.

The world is watching, unable, or perhaps unwilling, to do very much to stop the killing. Condemnation by the UN Security Council and the withdrawal of ambassadors by several countries has had little or no effect on the killing, nor has the US call for an economic boycott by Syria’s trading partners.

So much for the UN principles of Responsibility to Protect, which mandate the international community’s responsibility to intervene, by force if necessary, against a state which fails to protect its citizens. How many deaths will it take for the world to know that too many people have died?