Why the Syrian crisis is not like Egypt or Libya

I've been reading Juan Cole's site to stay up on what's going on in the Middle East (among others). And I found this comment by guest columnist Søren Schmidt interesting (my emphasis and paragraphing):

Syria is neither Egypt nor Libya – and the conflict can therefore not be solved as it was in Egypt and Libya respectively.

The conflict in Syria worsens with each day that passes, and by now more than 20,000 people have been killed. At the same time, the parties are more keenly opposed than ever. The regime will have to go in the long run, but nobody knows how to get rid of it and get started on a democracy.

In Egypt, Mubarak was defeated by the mobilization of large masses of people demonstrating in Tahrir Square. In the confrontation between the regime and the masses of people, it was the regime that blinked first. The military quite simply did not have the stomach to beat back so many people, and in one fell swoop the regime’s authority vanished.

In Libya, Gaddafi was so isolated in his own country that the Libyans were able to defeat him militarily with a little help from the West.

But neither of these solutions can be applied in Syria, for two reasons.

First of all, the situation in Syria is a proper civil war between the country’s Sunni majority (65%) and the Alawi minority (10%) that the Assad clan belongs to; while the remaining minorities (Christians, Druze, Kurds and Shia: 25%) either support the regime or keep themselves on the sidelines.

Since the conflict can not be described, as it was in Egypt or Libya, only as a conflict between the regime and the people, but also between two parties, each of which represents an important social force, the opposition is not able to challenge the regime through mass mobilization.

Please read the rest. There's much more going on in the current Middle East crisis than this — it's a multi-party game that includes U.S. interests (including oil), Islamic fundamentalist sentiment, in-state rebellions, Al Qaeda groups of various stripes and flags, local political parties and power-struggles, distrust of Western (and U.S.) intentions and interventionism, and so much more.

For example, there's this, from later in the same piece:

Syria is an important link in the so-called resistance alliance, which in addition to Syria consists of Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah in a deterrence alliance against Israel.

Syria’s alliance partners will therefore do whatever they can to prevent pro-Israel, Western powers from taking out an important link in this alliance.

What's going on region-wide is important and complex. But Syria is a special case, and the article provides a good baseline to start your thinking from.

Don't think binarily about Syria — regime vs. people — no matter how tempting that is (or how tempted you are by mainstream media to go that way). Syria has a political party aspect, a tribal aspect, and a defense-against-Israel aspect as well.

GP

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Syrian capital in chaos

Almost every report coming in from Syria right now is contradicted by another report. The only claim for which there appears to be good evidence is that the capital is in chaos with gunfights and explosions being heard.

The government claims that the defense minister and President Assad's brother in law were killed by a suicide bomber is contradicted by claims of responsibility by the Free Syrian Army and Liwa al-Islam, an Islamist group. And those are not the only people claiming responsibility.

According to an alternative version of events, the defense minister was killed by his own bodyguard. If that is true it is possible that the attack was actually an attempt at a coup, a Syrian version of the Stauffenberg bomb plot against Hitler.

According to the BBC World Service, Russia and even Iran are losing patience with the Syrian regime. But these reports have to be read with some skepticism as the BBC World Service exists to promote the world view of the UK Foreign Office. The Russian Ambassador to the UN is extremely clear that Russia opposes and will veto any Security Council resolution under Chapter 7, that is one that would authorize military intervention.

Russia is in a particularly weak diplomatic situation right now, having been on the losing side in (almost) every single international crisis since 1979: The invasion of Afghanistan, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Yugoslav civil war and most recently Libya.

The Arab Spring can be seen as a vindication of the 'domino theory', the revolution in Tunisia led to the uprisings in Egypt, Sudan and Libya. The fall of Libya has put renewed pressure on Syria. If Syria falls it is quite likely that there will be renewed unrest in the Gulf states, but what is likely to worry Russia rather more is the possibility that it would spread northward to the Caspian sea region.

With fighting in the capital, it now appears to be a question of when and how Assad falls rather than if he falls. Russian interests would certainly be best served if Assad was removed from the scene. Read the rest of this post...

Red Cross officially declares Syria a "civil war," fighting in Damascus, airport reportedly closed

Business Insider explains the legal ramifications of the situation now being declared a "civil war" - I didn't realize it made a legal difference:

The conflict in Syria was effectively declared a civil war by the Red Cross on Sunday, as the "most intense" fighting since the start of the uprising was reported in Damascus.

The Red Cross had previously designated Idlib, Homs and Hama as war zones, but the change in status means international humanitarian law applies wherever fighting occurs throughout the country

Combatants will now be officially subject to the Geneva Conventions, and will be more exposed to war crimes prosecutions, after the ICRC declared that the conflict was a "non-international armed conflict", or in lay terms a civil war.

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