Publication

On March 15 2011, Syria became yet another center of anti-authoritarian, Arab protests. This brief analyzes the situation in the country and how it might progress. The author contends that the nature of the uprising -the small scale of the protests, fragmentation of the opposition, consolidation of the regime’s forces, sectarian character of the society, and external actors’ interests - make it unlikely that the unrest will turn into a civil war. For that to happen, the army would have to side with the opposition, an unlikely scenario. The most probable outcome given the current state of events is that the regime will survive, but in a weakened form.