The Arab League is not alone in its new spirit of activism: The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), played a leading role in the campaign to depose Laurent Gbagbo, the president of Cote D'Ivoire, after he provoked a civil war rather than accept the results of an election he had lost. The heavy lifting in that operation was done by the U.N. and France; but, as in Libya, the regional body provided indispensable legitimacy for the international community. Sovereignty has begun to lose its magic even among the de-colonized nations which most zealously guard the principle. But Arab leaders also live in a new world. The Arab street has turned sharply against Assad; and the era when Arab leaders could afford to ignore public opinion is over. In that regard, the new tone of the Arab League is one of the early benefits of the Arab Spring.

Russia may choose to compromise rather than put itself on the wrong side of history. That would be encouraging. But, of course, a win for international diplomacy means nothing if Assad continues to kill unarmed civilians, or if Syria spirals into a yet more monstrous civil war. The resolution's backers hope that once Assad's supporters in the military and the business community see that they don't have to decide, as Assad insists they do, between murderous violence and utter chaos, but can instead choose what the resolution calls "an inclusive Syrian-led political process" to replace him, they will abandon the dictator. That's a plausible hypothesis. But if Assad concludes that he still has Russia in his corner -- along with China, Iran, and Hezbollah -- he may well believe that he can tough it out. And if Russia continues to deliver weaponry, he may retain the means to do so.

What then? The answer, alas, is: nothing. There has been a great deal of debate over the question of military intervention in Syria. An English think tank focused on Syria has even produced an assessment, mostly positive, of the case for establishing a "safe haven," like Benghazi in Libya, where civilians would be protected from attack and the opposition could safely organize. But it's not going to happen. Several months ago, French foreign minister Alain Juppe mooted the idea of a "humanitarian corridor," in which foreign troops would provide protection for aid agencies giving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Syria. But the idea got no support, and has since been dropped. One Western diplomat said to me, "Any possibility of military action is completely discarded, and considered as impossible." Could that change? One Obama administration official suggested that if Syrian troops were stupid enough to chase rebel soldiers across the border into Turkey, the Turks could not only answer with force but invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty requiring the organization to respond to an attack on a member. That is, he said, a very remote scenario. And even many NATO members would be reluctant to act without Security Council authorization, which Russia would never grant.

So the news is not all that good. The world is more prepared to act to stop atrocities than it was just a short while ago, but it is still unwilling, or perhaps unable, to actually bring those atrocities to an end. Russia and India are still prepared to make the grotesquely cynical argument that the events in Syria constitute a civil war between two sides equally at fault, rather than a murderous rampage which has, after long months, provoked some civilians to take up arms and some soldiers to defect. Advocates of forceful action still have more words than deeds at their disposal. Juppe admonished the Security Council earlier this week that its silence, in the face of Syria's "crimes against humanity," was "shameful." He repeated this word several times, lest anyone have failed to hear his outrage. But France has no Plan B to offer beyond what may turn out to be a fairly wan Security Council resolution. That does, actually, put one in mind of the debates over Darfur.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that the arc of history bends towards justice. The arc is almost imperceptible. But I still believe it's bending that way.

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