The resolution adopted by the Arab League foreign ministers at their meeting in Cairo on 12 February formally scrapped the monitoring mission which was sent to Syria in late December and proposed to replace it with a joint UN-Arab peacekeeping force. That elicited a tepid expression of support from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who noted on 13 February that "the peacekeeping request is one that will take agreement and consensus. We don't know that it is going to be possible to persuade Syria." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, for his part, argued that in order for peacekeepers to function, there must be a peace to keep, saying that "it is necessary to agree to something like a ceasefire, but the tragedy is that the armed groups that are confronting the forces of the regime are not subordinate to anyone and are not under control." However, the peacekeeping proposal was not the only initiative decided by the Cairo meeting. The resolution also called for "opening communication channels with the Syrian opposition and providing all forms of political and material support to it."  Arab League officials claimed that in this instance "material" was intended to mean "financial," but it escaped no-one's notice that the wording left the door ajar to supplying the Syrian opposition with arms, which would be a significant escalation of both the conflict and outside involvement in it. Little wonder that the Syrian government dismissed the resolution as "a flagrant departure from the group's charter and a hostile act that targets Syria's security and stability."

On the ground the Syrian government's reaction was equally unyielding. As UN Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay put it on 13 February, "the failure of the Security Council to agree on firm collective action appears to have emboldened the Syrian government to launch an all-out assault in an effort to crush dissent with overwhelming force." By MEES press time on 17 February, the confrontation between government forces and insurgents which began in Homs on 5 February was continuing and had spread north to Hama and south to the cradle of the insurgency in Dir'a. It was at this juncture that, bizarrely, the government announced on 15 February that President Bashar al-Asad had ordered a referendum to be held on 26 February on a new constitution under which the president will serve for a maximum of two seven-year terms and "the political system of the state will be based on a principle of political plurality and democracy will be practiced through the ballot box." (The current document enshrines Mr Asad's Ba'th party as the "leader of the state and society.") Furthermore, state TV announced on the same day that the referendum will be followed within 90 days by parliamentary elections, meaning, presumably, that the government expects Syria to evolve into a mature multi-party democracy by the end of May. This is a timetable which White House   spokesman Jay Carney described on 15 February as "laughable" and "a mockery of the Syrian revolution." He added that "promises of reform have been usually followed by an increase in brutality and have never been delivered upon by this regime since the beginning of peaceful demonstrations in Syria. The Asad regime's days are numbered."