( CNN ) -- A last-ditch effort to put an end to the bloodshed in Syria failed on Saturday , with Russia and China exercising their veto at the United Nations . With that fateful decision , the conflict moved to another , more dangerous stage . Those who warn that Syria will descend into civil war are a bit behind : It is already in civil war . Now it will only intensify . In the months leading up to the U.N. vote , Syria 's opposition has grown more militarized . Rebel forces , under the banner of the Free Syrian Army , gained considerable traction after a shaky start . The U.N. 's failure to act may have been the best recruiting tool the FSA could have hoped for , and its ascendancy is now a nearly foregone conclusion . Meanwhile , after first opposing any resort to armed resistance , the Syrian National Council , the country 's most representative opposition body , has made an important shift . It has now `` pledged to support '' the FSA , and the two groups are attempting to increase coordination . Where does that leave the international community ? The U.N.-endorsed norm of `` responsibility to protect '' ( sometimes boiled down to `` r2p '' ) mandates a collective response when states wage war on their own populations . The Syrian regime , however , is making a mockery of the notion , with its brutal assault on the city of Homs just as the U.N. vote was taking place . Either the international community takes r2p seriously , or it does n't . We have to decide . As I 've argued before , military intervention remains premature . But , in light of recent events , the time has come to carefully consider the various military options available , determine their feasibility , and begin to judge whether they would cause more good than harm . Of course , no one should take such intervention lightly . But just as proponents of intervention must make their case for how the military option could `` work , '' opponents of intervention face a similar burden of explaining how staying the current course will work . If the opposition itself has chosen the military option -- and this seems increasingly the case -- then the question is this : Can a ragtag army of perhaps 10,000 Syrian rebels defeat an army that while , far from invincible , enjoys an overwhelming advantage in numbers , equipment and firepower ? The opposition may have millions on their side , with Syrians continuing to protest en masse throughout the country . But it 's difficult to see anything less than a disastrous stalemate without the international community helping to tip the balance . No one , to my knowledge , is advocating for an Iraq-style invasion with tens of thousands of American boots on the ground . The options being considered are far more limited -- funding and arming the Free Syria Army , establishing `` safe zones '' in the north and a targeted air mission to weaken the Syrian military 's capabilities . To be sure , all of these are serious forms of military intervention , but bringing up the specter of Iraq can be misleading , just as it was in Libya . So we find ourselves in an odd but increasingly common situation , where Syrians themselves are more enthusiastic about foreign military intervention than Americans are . It is , in this sense , the reverse of Iraq , which was rightly seen by many as a tragic Western imposition . Here , it is Syrians themselves who are pleading for the international community to come to their aid . In December , the Syrian National Council `` formally endorsed '' foreign intervention . If they formally request military assistance -- presumably the next step -- we have a moral responsibility to take it seriously . Unless the Assad regime suddenly implodes -- a possibility , but an unlikely one -- this is the direction in which we are heading . The `` anti-imperialists '' will , as they often do , cry foul . This time , though , they will find themselves on the wrong side . None of the Western powers has come out in even tepid support of military intervention . Consumed by their own internal problems , this is not at all something they want . But it may be something the Syrian people need . Follow CNN Opinion on Twitter . Join the conversation on Facebook . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Shadi Hamid .
Hamid : The vetoes of the Facebook resolution on Syria send the conflict to a new , more dangerous phase . He says nations are supposed to take collective action when a regime wars against its own people . Shadi Hamid says the west does n't want to intervene militarily in Russia , even though Western want that help .