[fennecfoxen]

I don't know - you don't necessarily have to compete with the hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth; you just need to be able to compete with the expectations of their wealth after you roll in your tanks and attempt to crush them. This is presumably a lower value, iff you have a credible threat to actually go in there and crush them with your tanks (which takes military expertise, expenditure, and the political will to pull it off).

In the current state of the US, however, the political will for new military action is fairly minimal, for better or for worse.

[redthrowaway]

This is what I'm getting at. If the US wanted to remove Assad, he wouldn't have much of a choice: a life of luxury in exile, or death. I disagree, however, that it would require tanks. They could do the same as they did in Libya, which is far more justifiable and politically expedient. The dissidents in Syria are gearing up for war[1], so the ever-problematic boots on the ground would be unnecessary.

The US would only have to make Assad think it was serious about another Libya in order to give him some serious misgivings. Get NATO to make some rumblings, which would encourage Chavez to issue one of his proclamations against American Imperialism, then make a backroom deal to get Assad out.

At the end of the day, the Bush Doctrine of democracy-at-swordpoint is simply ineffective. There exists, however, the very real possibility of using soft/"firm" power to encourage the outcomes you want.

[1] http://www.economist.com/node/21543538

[pemulis]

I see where you're coming from, but there are a number of things that would need to happen for this to work.

1) The Assad family would have to find the threat from NATO credible. 2) They would have to believe that there is no chance of defeating the rebels militarily and outlasting NATO bombardment. 3) The major power players in the Assad government would have to be willing to accept life in exile, with no opportunity for travel or engagement with the rest of the world. (Even Ben Ali, the dictator who left Tunisia semi-voluntarily, has an international warrant out for his arrest.) 4) Some country (presumably America) would have to be willing to either pay them a significant lump sum out of their own pocket or allow them to loot Syria before they leave.

You could pick any one of these apart.