Vultures

I like Rami Khoury’s “Vultures” metaphor to describe Saudi Arabia and Turkey’s attitude to Syria:

This extraordinary spectacle of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran focusing on Syria is not yet a bevy of vultures hovering over the wounded Syrian body — but it is the first step toward that […]

For now, the most interesting and historically important aspect of the situation in Syria is less the behavior of the top-heavy, security-based Assad regime — an endangered global species — and more the continued awakening of regional powers intervening in Syrian affairs more openly

The only slight change I’d make to that is that Iran is not one of the vultures. It’s a ground guardian of the Syrian corpse trying to both resuscitate it and defend it from the approaching vultures..