The acknowledgement by Syria this week that it has chemical and biological weapons - and is prepared to use them if foreign countries intervene in the current conflict there - has intensified the war of words being played out even as casualties continue to escalate on the ground.
The bomb attack last week that killed four of President Bashar al-Assad's key military advisers was hailed by some as a turning point in the 16-month uprising, but it is the fears of chemical warfare that may escalate international pressure on Assad.
Syria is not a signatory to an international convention that bans the use, production or stockpiling of chemical weapons.
Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said this week the chemical weapons would not be used to crush rebels but could be used if "Syria faces external aggression". That declaration brought swift condemnation from the West. United States President Barack Obama said Assad's regime would "be held accountable by the international community and the United States should they make the tragic mistake of using those weapons".
Such talk is among the toughest yet in a conflict in which the language used to describe it has sometimes not appeared to do justice to events. For months, news reports have carried articles warning the country was "heading towards civil war", yet only last month did a senior United Nations official finally acknowledge exactly that.
As recently as last week, Jordan's King Abdullah was quoted as saying Syria "is spinning out of control". In a radio interview broadcast in New Zealand last week, a journalist asked an interviewee what could be done to avoid Syria "becoming a bloodbath". It has been obvious to most the country has been in "civil war" for some time, has long since "spun out of control", and - with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimating more than 18,000 deaths in the conflict to date, often in circumstances labelled by Amnesty International as "crimes against humanity" - it is quite clearly a "bloodbath".
While some argue semantics, innocent Syrians continue to be slaughtered. It seems almost as if language has become a shield that protects observers from brutal reality, but also stymies any effective action. Compare the rhetoric by the West around the time of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq - the "war on terror", the "axis of evil", and "weapons of mass destruction" - involving strong words which called for, and could be seen to justify, strong action. Of course, we recognise it is not as simplistic as that. Yet, what is the legacy of those invasions?
One is the diminishing appetite in the West for sending troops to war on foreign soil; another the realisation that the moral highground is at best a murky minefield. There is also the very real fear intervention could escalate regional conflict, and even global unrest, as long as international heavyweights like Russia and China continue to support the Assad regime. The only certainty is there will be plenty of detractors, no matter what decisions are made by the West.
A Syrian rebel commander, Abdullah al-Shami, was reported as saying last week the deaths of Assad's senior advisers marked a "qualitative shift" that would "further demoralise anyone who supports the regime".
"I expect a speedy collapse of the regime ... and it means we will not be in need of outside intervention with the regime beginning to crumble much faster than we envisaged," he said.
The US and its Western allies - as well as the Syrian people - must be hoping this is the case.
So far though there seems no let-up to the violence in what looks likely to be the bloodiest month of the conflict, as both rebels and Assad's troops claim victories on the ground. For all the talk, the attempts at diplomacy, and the hand-wringing, actions speak louder than words. Just who will make the next move, and in doing so write the next chapter in Syria's history - and quite what its contents will be - remains anyone's guess. As President Obama also said of Syria this week: "The world is watching."
