Poor rebels. After 2 1/2 years, with a couple of days delay, it's all our fault. And whatever had been or is done, won't be enough, and thus result our fault. And we should recognize by now that mission creep is difficult to resist once you begin.

From The Wall Street Journal:

With a U.S. attack on Syria on hold, Western-backed rebels said they feared they had lost their best chance of promptly ousting President Bashar al-Assad and sidelining Islamist extremists.

Rebels in Syria, already frustrated with delays in promised U.S. military aid, said on Wednesday that they gave up on the prospect of decisive foreign help after President Barack Obama asked Congress to delay a vote on striking Syria.

Mr. Obama put U.S. military momentum on pause on Tuesday night to give time for diplomacy to run its course, after a Russian proposal that Damascus hand over its chemical weapons, an effort to avert an attack.

 

Rebels based in the Damascus suburbs, counting on the U.S., had already adjusted their battle plans. Anticipating American airstrikes that in their view could help neutralize Mr. Assad's air force, the rebels plotted to follow with an assault on the Syrian capital that, they hoped, would crack the regime, according to these rebels.

Those expectations—as with other rebel hopes for game-changing U.S. intervention over the course of the 2½-year conflict—appear to have been unrealistic. Mr. Obama raised the idea of U.S. military action as a way to punish the Assad government for using chemical weapons—not to help the rebels in the battle on the ground.