After scoring a victory in Egypt, Saudi Arabia is hoping to achieve the same swift success in Syria, where the struggle between the regime and the rebels seems ever more complex and bloody. If it does, Saudi Arabia will emerge as the main arbiter of Arab regional politics for the foreseeable future. If it does not, its claim to regional leadership will be seriously undermined.

The human cost of the bloody Syrian conflict that was destined from the very beginning to become a regional and international concern is rising by the day. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal urged the Arab League to back a military strike against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime after the chemical attack on Ghouta in which hundreds of Syrians were killed. Faisal said Saudi Arabia would back a US strike on Syrian government targets, provided the military intervention was "the will of the Syrian people."

The Saudis' clear sanctioning of a US-led military strike comes after Arab efforts to back the rebels have not led to a clear victory. The conflict is still claiming lives and there are no signs that the Syrian regime is approaching its final days. A military strike, it is believed, would weaken the military capabilities of the regime, giving the rebels a better opportunity on the ground to erode Assad’s grip on power.

Away from humanitarian concerns over the Syrian victims of chemical attacks, the Saudi antagonism to Assad’s regime started in 2006, when it appeared that together with Iraq, Syria was beginning to drift even more toward the Iranian sphere of influence and away from the Saudi-led Arab position, causing discomfort in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia aims to return Syria to its fold after years of estrangement and even hostility.