On Monday, Qatar‘s prime minister declared his tiny State’s intent to start helping the Syrian opposition “by all means”, including giving them weapons. Two days later, anti-Assad officials received an offer of a $100m (£63m) donation, from their brothers in arms in Libya.

Coincidence? Unlikely, if the Libyan revolution is any indicator.

The third act looks very much like the beginning of a concerted push to arm the Syrian insurgency: The previously gun-shy Syrian National Council (how funny and false) formed a military council, which it says will act as a clearing house for anyone offering it arms.

Two probabilities have quickly emerged:

The first is that a militarized Syrian National Council is unlikely to be short of suppliers.

Second, Libya is merely a conduit for the $100m, which was at least partly funded by Qatar to get things rolling.

Libya’s national transitional council has been quick to stress that the money sent is for humanitarian aid, which is clearly desperately needed in western Syria, particularly in Homs, a city which was lately invested by the regime military and withered under a regime offensive.

No one in the nascent Tripoli government is quibbling about where the cash comes from.

When asked yesterday how a State still in turmoil could afford such a generous gift, a spokesman for the Libyan council simply replied: “It won’t be a problem”.

Qatar’s remarks this week, as well as Saudi Arabia’s claim last Friday that arming the Syrian rebels would be an “excellent idea”, clearly shows a new reality.

The Rubicon has been crossed, and made public.

Hopes of resolving Syria’s raging insurgency through patience, or dialogue, have evaporated.

From the early days of the uprising against Colonel Gaddafi, Qatar was running more weapons to Libya’s rebels than any other state. Throughout the war, giant Qatari military air transports regularly disgorged tonnes of weaponry in plain view at Djerba airport in Tunisia, not far from the Libyan border.

The Qataris sent jet fighters to bomb Gaddafi’s armour and special forces to train rebels. They opened a military operations room in Doha and hosted the regime’s highest-profile defectors, as well as rebel leaders to whom they provided with money and mentoring.

As Syria has unraveled throughout the past year, Qatar has played another lead role. It was centre stage in the Arab League’s move to suspend Damascus as a member State and it has been increasingly strident in its criticism of President Bashar al-Assad.

The change in attitude had been subtle at first: a gradual disengagement, followed by increasingly stern back-channel diplomacy. All carried out in the way of the Arab world: avoiding insult or direct confrontation.

Not any more. Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani, on Monday:

“We should do whatever is necessary to help the Syrian rebels, including giving them weapons to defend themselves. This uprising in Syria has lasted one year. For 10 months, it was peaceful: nobody was carrying weapons, nobody was doing anything. And Bashar continued killing them.” (Wishful proclamations of non-violent activities…)

“So I think they’re right to defend themselves by weapons, and I think we should help these people by all means.”

After urging political recourse and discouraging intervention for so long, the Syrian National Council (SNC) is now also speaking from a markedly different script.

The Syrian academics Burhan Ghalioun, hand-picked and financed by France and the USA said: “We wanted to organise those who are carrying arms today. We stress that any weapons coming into the country should be vetted by the council….”

“The revolution started peacefully and kept up its peaceful nature for months, but the reality today is different. We know that some countries have expressed a desire to arm the revolutionaries. The SNC will be this link between those who want to help and the revolutionaries. It is out of the question that arms go into Syria in confusion.”

It is also beyond doubt that a long predicted milestone in the Syrian conflict has now been reached. From this point, nation states, rather than black-market arms bazaars, loom as potential suppliers to the outgunned opposition. Such a prospect is alarming the US and Nato, which said this week it absolutely ruled out direct intervention in a war that nobody seems to want and most seem to fear.” End of quote

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirate are plainly playing with fire: These States have no citizens, but slaves.

You have the fat slaves subsidized by the monarchs, and the skinny slaves imported from Pakistan, Bangladesh…who eat the left-over of their masters, and are confined in restricted areas, out of sight of the people…

These absolute monarchs are furious for the “undemocratic and uncivil” behaviors of this dictator regime in Syria…