clock is ticking for Baa'th party and Asad!
Lots of fights in both big cities, and loss of control in different parts of the country so would be hard to believe this regime can survive long.
Even Russia may soon stop insisting on dictator's survival and accept the fact.
Syria's very mixed etnic society and politics has made it even harder to predict what will happen after the collapse.

so where will be 6th. regime to be toppled down?

from today's headlines (in Turkish papers) it appears that Kurds are trying to create their own region there.. so I would not be surprised if we end up with a Kurdish state covering Northern Iraq + Syria soon

I don't know. But it is well possible that the Assad regime survives for many years, or that it will fade away into history within days !

In Syria, the Kurdish region is just in the Deir-ez-Zor corner. So that everything depends on Iraqi Kurdistan and the decisions of the leaders there.

Kurds are scattered also in North west, Like Efrin, part of Aleppo,... and well why not having more freedom and autonomy after a century of neglecting and suppression?!!

In any case Baath regime can't be strong any more, and despite wars, sanctions, smashed country and economy, foreighn pressure, massive unrest ,...... even if doesn't collapse very soon, even midterm survival for them will be hard!

Sorry but the Aleppo region is thoroughly Arab. Kurdish rule there would be oppression, dictatorship and terror And Aleppo was NOT suppressed or neglected but rather favoured.

The present regime is using the Ba'ath Party as a tool for their rule, but is in fact an Allaouite regime dominated by the Assad clan.

If you look at Syrian history between 1946 (independence) and 1963/70 you can see that with the exception of the years when Colonel Shishakli ruled the country, Syria was as unstable as anything can be. Only the 1970 takeover of Hafez al-Assad


brought some stability to the country. Sure, the rule of the present regime has now become unacceptable. But it kept up religious freedoms for Muslim and Christian minorities

Just saw this bit of gruesome news. Pictures of a video showing a young boy decapitating a man.
http://www.20min.ch/ausland/dossier/...yrien-26624732

That is terrible. I wish I did not click on this video. What is wrong with the world?

Related subject: why the hell does youtube allow such content but remove a video if god forbid a naked breast is visible?

After the Embassy Americans were murdered in Lybia, this Forum proclaimed strongly that free speech was paramount, and should not be suppressed.

Personally I feel if it offends the Christian or any other religions, then it should be removed from Youtube. Showing any video of this nature is offensive in any civilised society, including Swiss 20min.

This thread is about Syria, not freedom of speech.

The Video shows the dilemma of Syria: Brutal Alawite Assad Vs. Brutal Sunnis.

1,000,000 refugees
70,000 dead
nobody even attempts to count the wounded, homes destroyed.

Syria is worse than post-saddam Iraq.

Did anyone see Rafiq Schami in Kaufleuten yesterday ?

These are the same rebels that the EU/US is considering arming

The care bears are busy elsewhere.

It is a civil war; brother against brother.

Horrible & brutal; enormous amounts of collateral damage.

If the rebels did use chemical weapons then where did they find them? I suppose in a Syrian govt. store?

I see the Syrian govt. is saying that the Israel attacks are a declaration of war; I thought that anyway Syria & Israel are technically at war because they never signed peace agreements after the 1967 war.

I foresee it will just get worse. If Assad steps down I believe it will bring some peace but then only short term; it will probably spiral down into a new civil war between different Muslim factions.

Whatever, I hope that Bashir el-Assad quits. The earlier the better

The war in Syria is almost exclusively sectarian. The "Arab spring" proved how weak Arab nationalism is. Syria, like Iraq and Libya was held together by sheer brutality.

About "Syria, like Iraq and Libya was held together by sheer brutality" - Yugoslavia also!

No chance. Assad knows that if he quits he's dead. He will keep on fighting - in fact, the war is going better for him now. the rebels are disorganized & sectarian, plenty of cracks for Assad to exploit.

If he wins, he will be in the same situation as General Franco at the end of the Spanish Civil War, which means that he will have to establish a fairly totalitarian very well organised dictatorshop. Quite in contrast to the relatively "liberal" regime he has lead previously. His problem will be that people will obtain info from both Lebanon and Jordan

The opposition, which is a wide "assemblage" of people ranging from leftwing secularists to rightwing fundamentalists will find it difficult to overcome internal differences.

Syria is getting cluster-fuct by a whole bunch of foreign countries that do not belong there. Everyone should butt out and only act under one direction, perhaps UN mandated, as much as I think the UN is ineffective. I think Ban-Ki Moon is doing a lousy job over Syria, by not even showing a presence.

The US normally steps in such situations, but has been mum. This is how things look like without international leadership.

At present, no foreign countries are actually in Syria, unless you see weapons deliveries as presence.

Mr Obama knows that invading with direct assistance from either Israel or Turkey would be disastrous for political and psychological reasons, and so quite correctly hesitates.