Article

2012-01-15 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

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Posted by Lord Garth 2012-01-15 15:42|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 Uncivil maybe.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2012-01-15 16:46|| 2012-01-15 16:46|| Front Page Top

#2 I'd say a civil war has already started. The big question is whether there will be outside intervention.

Posted by phil_b 2012-01-15 17:00|| 2012-01-15 17:00|| Front Page Top

#3 when they keep protesting in the face of army/security forces fire it's a short time til the regime falls.

Posted by Frank G 2012-01-15 17:02|| 2012-01-15 17:02|| Front Page Top

#4 when they keep protesting in the face of army/security forces fire it's a short time til the regime falls.

This is true only if the security forces identify with the protestors. If the troops are predominantly non-Sunni and the protestors are mainly Sunni, then it's only a matter of time until the Hama massacre is re-enacted in cities across Syria.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2012-01-15 18:14|| 2012-01-15 18:14|| Front Page Top

#5 the Alawites are a minority. It's going to become a war where the security forces flee with their families soon to avoid the consequences

Posted by Frank G 2012-01-15 18:16|| 2012-01-15 18:16|| Front Page Top

#6 the Alawites are a minority. It's going to become a war where the security forces flee with their families soon to avoid the consequences

Actually, non-Sunnis are a 25% minority, compared to Iraq's 16% Sunni Arab population, which ruled for roughly a century, suppressing both Kurds and Shiites, before our blood and treasure earned for the Shiites dominance over the Sunni Arabs and the Kurds. Short of Western intervention, the Alawites will continue running Syria for a while, whether or not Assad remains the leader. The Alawites will attempt to maintain solidarity with Sunni Arabs by insinuating that foreigners (whether Arabs, Americans or Jews) are responsible for the protests, but the bottom line is that they will fight to the death because they can't just leave* - someone has to take them...

* This is what the disgruntled folks who are always promising to leave the country, if some presidential candidate gets elected, keep forgetting. You don't just leave. Some country has to take you in. And if you go there anyway, capture means deportation to your home country. The Jews who fled the Nazis, had no way of realistically fighting the Nazis, and therefore couldn't really rue their choices when they were deported back to Nazi-occupied Europe for extermination - they had done all that was humanly possible. The Alawites are holding the guns - they'd be nuts to leave as refugees and risk being discovered abroad and deported back to certain death in Syria.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2012-01-15 19:13|| 2012-01-15 19:13|| Front Page Top

#7 dream world, Robert. The Alawites will (rightly so) expect a sectarian cleansing

Posted by Frank G 2012-01-15 19:35|| 2012-01-15 19:35|| Front Page Top

#8 dream world, Robert. The Alawites will (rightly so) expect a sectarian cleansing

Time will tell. For a time, Hafiz Assad looked like he was tottering under an Ikhwan onslaught of assassinations and bombings. Then he carried out the Hama operation, and that was the end of the Ikhwan, for almost three decades. Never underestimate the power of the state, in the hands of a ruthless despot, against mere insurgents.

Note that Iraqi Sunnis carry out bombings at will against the ruling Shiites, whereas Syrian Sunnis are practically powerless against the ruling Alawites. This is yet another reason that the real countdown isn't the one towards the collapse of the Syrian regime, but the one towards a series of climactic massacres that will once again restore the calm that endured for decades after the destruction of the Ikhwan at Hama.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2012-01-15 19:57|| 2012-01-15 19:57|| Front Page Top

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