Consider Obama’s call, backed by no action, for Assad to “step aside,” and his repeated promises, dating to early 2012, to provide non-lethal aid to the Syrian opposition – promises that were finally fulfilled late last year, and then only temporarily. This gap between rhetoric and action left a vacuum;
想想奥巴马要求阿萨德“下台”的缺乏实际行动支持的空洞呼吁，以及可以追溯到2012年初期的反复承诺为叙利亚反对派提供非致命性援助——直到去年下半年奥巴马的承诺才终于兑现，但也只是兑现了一段时间而已。言论和行动的巨大差距留下了一段真空；沙特阿拉伯、卡塔尔和私人捐助者随后通过支持反对派极端势力填补了这段真空，并在巩固自己势力的同时削弱了温和派的势力。