The important thing about what is happening around the situation in Syria is that so many things are happening simultaneously. The sheer number and weight of various diplomatic initiatives that are now in play indicate that politics, rather than fighting on the ground, will determine the outcome of what is a low-intensity civil war that has not yet turned into a full-fledged sectarian conflict. This is the preferred situation, because an all-out military battle would see massive death and destruction, without necessarily ending the standoff between government and opposition.

The dynamic diplomatic front that has now been activated, however, offers a range of options that could combine to bring about an eventual resolution of the conflict, probably but not certainly with a change in both the leadership of the Assad family and their top-heavy authoritarian rule. The collapse of efforts to pressure Syria at the U.N. Security Council, due to the Russian-Chinese veto, seem only to have enhanced the resolve of many Arab governments to explore other means to end the killings and perhaps move the country to a more representative and democratic system of government.

The latest Arab League and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meetings in Cairo over the weekend triggered a flurry of diplomatic and bilateral political activity that is striking for the variety of its channels and actors. Three parallel tracks now seem to be operational. The debate at the U.N. General Assembly, including the harsh verdict against the Syrian government’s actions by the U.N. Human Rights Council, reveals a significant international desire to pressure the Syrian government to change its policy toward the mostly nonviolent demonstrators. Simultaneously, the Arab League has proposed forming a joint Arab-United Nations peacekeeping force to stabilize the situation inside Syria, and appointing a U.N.-Arab League special envoy to Syria. The U.N.-Arab League combination is likely to have more clout than either organization on its own.

A second track is the formation of a Friends of Syria group of countries that is due to meet in Tunisia on Feb. 24. The group will explore ways to pressure all sides in Syria to resolve the conflict through a political track. This could provide the mechanism for “legitimate” collective international action that was blocked by the Security Council vetoes.

A third track comprises a range of bilateral moves by Arab countries that could open the way for others around the world to join. These moves include withdrawing their ambassadors from Damascus and expelling Syrian ambassadors, increasing contacts with the various Syrian opposition groups, and providing the opposition with a range of political and material assistance. The material assistance, presumably, means band-aids as well as bazookas.

What I find most intriguing – and a sign of a new age dawning in the Middle East – is that the four pivotal diplomatic players in these dynamics now seem to be Russia, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia, with Tunisia, Qatar and the Arab League all playing important roles. The United States looms large in the background, and the Europeans, sigh, they are a diplomatic tale still being written.

The current three-track level of activity, with numerous bilateral diplomatic meetings going on alongside the multilateral actions, suggests that new forms of pressure will continue to be applied to the rulers in Damascus, with obvious initial goals in mind: eroding the economic base of the regime, and strengthening the capacity of the nonviolent demonstrators to persist and of the armed opposition to strike around the country.

This aims ultimately to demoralize the overstretched armed forces (look for more one-off attacks against them), enhance the credibility, efficacy and legitimacy of a more unified opposition movement, and ultimately cause the Russians to see the futility of supporting a doomed regime, thereby hastening the shift to a political transition to a post-Assad Syria. The Assad family and their co-rulers will never go along with such a transition, unless they find themselves isolated domestically, regionally and globally, which is the aim of the current three-pronged strategy.

The key variable in all this is the capacity of the Syrian people to withstand for many more months the pain and death they now suffer on a daily basis. If the government repeats its brutal Homs assault across the country in a dozen cities simultaneously – which it is logistically and temperamentally capable of doing, as it did in Hama three decades ago – it is possible that the opposition could be crushed. However, the trajectory of the past 10 months suggests otherwise, as regime attacks have only escalated the scope and determination of the opposition to resist and topple the government, with a parallel steady increase in Arab and international support for the opposition.

If the government lowers the intensity of its attacks against opposition areas, the Arab world and international community would probably lose their enthusiasm to keep pressing for change. I expect we will know more by early summer, with diplomatic and economic levers now looming as the critical dynamics to watch.

Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR.