As the weekend began, it had become apparent that Syria's horrific 17-month uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad had entered its final stages. It remains only to be seen how many people must die before Assad realizes that and what, if anything, the international community can do to ease Syria's transition to whatever comes next.

Assad has limited options:

—He can cut a deal and hope to escape to exile to Moscow or Tehran with his life; almost anywhere else, he would be trailed by war crimes investigators.

—He can continue pounding rebels and Sunni neighborhoods with his tanks and helicopter gunships, though his four top generals were assassinated last week, other officers are deserting by the dozen, home-made bombs are killing an increasing number of his troops and his army's largely Sunni rank and file doesn't like him very much.

—He can start a wider war and choose martyrdom, though few in his grieving nation would mourn him.

Assad is a sophisticated man, a British-educated ophthalmologist. When he became Syria's president in 2000 following the death of his father, the longtime dictator Hafez al-Assad, there were hopes that he would modernize the nation. Instead, he reinforced Syria's reputation as a garrison state, a sponsor of international terrorism, a Russian client nation and an ally of the Shiite mullahs in Iran.

A wiser man would have realized that the Arab Spring that began in early 2011 eventually would spell his doom. The numbers were against him. A member of Shia Islam's Allawite sect, Assad rules a nation that is 75 percent Sunni Muslim. He assumed that his 330,000-man army and air force, armed to the teeth with Russian weapons, could maintain control.

For 17 months Assad's military gunned down his own people. The death toll is reliably estimated at 17,000. The number of refugees who have fled to Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon exceeds 200,000. This is man-made catastrophe created by one man. However he goes, it is long past time.

He lasted this long only because of his astonishing brutality and a huge advantage in firepower. But the lesson of modern asymmetric warfare is plain: Heavy weapons don't matter as much as they used do. Cheap explosives triggered by cell phones can disable main battle tanks. Car bombs can wipe out artillery pieces and entire platoons. Last Wednesday, a bomb planted by either an infiltrator or a suicide bomber wiped out Assad's military brain trust.

He should had taken the deal offered by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations' secretary general who is acting as a U.N. special representative. It boiled down to this: Just stop killing your own people and we'll work it out so that you can stay.

Before Assad goes, as he must, he could use his chemical weapons stockpile against his own people, or hand them over to Hezbollah, his terrorist allies. He could launch an attack on Israel to change the subject, creating a cataclysm.

The United Nations can't stop this — a Russian and Chinese veto in the Security Council last week saw to that. Diplomatic efforts should focus on convincing Russian President Vladimir Putin that if wants to be seen as a hero, he should invite Assad to Moscow and keep him there. If necessary, in the Lubyanka.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH