University of Notre Dame peace scholar and former UN sanctions panel expert Professor George A. Lopez weighs warns of increased violence in Syria following Russia-China veto of a UN Security Council resolution on Syria: “In the absence of UN restraints on President Bashar al-Assad, a major concern is that he’ll unleash a full gun assault, and I think we’ve seen that happening in the first 48 hours since the veto…Another concern is that there may be large numbers of army defections, but they’re not very heavily armed, which could lead to neighboring states beginning to arm the rebels–maybe even Western states if they’re worried about humanitarian slaughter.”