With Syria's crackdown on democracy activists now in its seventh month, serious questions have begun to arise over the extent to which a militarized faction of the protest movement may, or may not, be able to mount an armed revolt against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Reports this week honed in on a group of recently defected Syrian military soldiers and officers calling themselves the Free Syrian Army. While the group has created a presence online, according to Joshua Landis, the author of Syria Comment, a leading English-language blog on Syria, it now faces a true test in attempting to grow beyond that during the weeks ahead. ...