Ahmad Jarba, president of the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC), appealed May 7 for “effective, efficient weapons” to counter the barrel bombs and other airstrikes used by the regime of Bashar al-Assad against the Syrian people.

But Jarba, on his first visit to Washington, did not specify which weapons — an apparent acknowledgment that he is unlikely to receive from the United States the portable anti-aircraft missiles known as MANPADS that the Syrian opposition has sought unsuccessfully for months.

The Obama administration has confined its publicly acknowledged support for the Syrian opposition so far to $287 million in nonlethal assistance and symbolic gestures such as the announcement on May 5 that it is conveying “foreign mission” status on the US offices of the SOC, a step short of formal diplomatic relations. The CIA is believed to have provided a limited number of anti-tank weapons to the opposition’s moderate military wing, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), through Jordan. The United States has also been the largest single donor of humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees and those displaced within the country. But Washington has balked at MANPADS, which potentially could threaten civil aviation and might wind up in the hands of Islamic extremists.

Jarba’s visit comes at a time when US policy toward Syria is in apparent disarray. Efforts to achieve a political solution collapsed in Geneva in February when Syrian officials refused to discuss formation of a transitional government. Instead, Assad has vowed to run in June for a third seven-year term as president — an action that Jarba derided Wednesday as “a farce.” While the FSA has made some progress against al-Qaeda-backed groups, public opinion polls show scant support for any Syrian faction. In a background call with reporters on Monday, a senior US administration official conceded that “the current conditions, the current asymmetry does not provide the kind of political calculus needed to get that type of negotiated, serious political process underway.” The official added that in Washington “there is probably no single issue … that is currently meriting as much debate, senior policy-level discussion and that kind of thing than Syria.”