“Basically, it’s inevitable,” Barak said in a telephone interview before flying Wednesday to Washington for meetings with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other administration officials. “The Assad family, through their own behavior, have lost their last drop of legitimacy and put themselves beyond the point of no return with their brutal slaughter of their own people. He has ceased to be something relevant.”

“It might take many weeks,” Barak added, “ but it’s not a matter of months or years.”

In a separate interview, Moshe Ya’alon, the minister of Strategic Affairs, said: “It’s a matter of time and bloodshed before we will witness Assad’s departure. That is our assessment.”