President Barack Obama said this past week that the bloodshed was heartbreaking and inexcusable, but he made clear that he does not favor military action now against Assad.

"The notion that the way to solve every one of these problems is to deploy our military, that hasn't been true in the past and it won't be true now," Obama said. He suggested Assad will leave without an outside military shove, but he gave no indication when.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Friday the goal is to apply international pressure against Syria. He contended that economic penalties and diplomatic pressure are "having a significant impact on Assad" and undermining his rule.

But a diplomatic mission by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan, who met with Assad in the capital, Damascus, seemed to be going nowhere. Assad told Annan that any political dialogue was doomed to fail "as long as there are armed terrorist groups that work to spread anarchy and destabilize the country," according to the state news agency SANA.