During World War II, Winston Churchill famously drew a distinction between "the end of the beginning" and "the beginning of the end."
That distinction is equally applicable to the unfolding Syrian crisis. Recent events — the growing number of high-level defections from the regime's leadership, the killing of three of President Bashar Assad's most senior officials in a bomb attack, and the rebellion's spread into Damascus itself — suggest that, after a long period of gradual decline, the Assad regime is now approaching collapse or implosion.
The Syrian crisis has been raging since March 2011. After several months of mostly quiet demonstrations and brutal suppression, a pattern emerged. The political opposition — divided and ineffectual — was reinforced by a hybrid and loose military wing operating under the banner of "The Free Syrian Army," and by hundreds of jihadis who entered Syria through porous borders and began to launch both military action and terrorist activity. The opposition, political and military could not topple the regime, and the regime could not quash the opposition.