As Max Weber pointed out, the succes or failure of a revolution often turns not on the behavior of the population at large, but rather the loyalty of the ruler's "staff"--court favorites, military commanders, etc. It seems like the Assad regime, in privileging a narrower circle of Alawite's at the expense of Sunnis, is sowing the seeds of its own imminent unraveling: paranoid that it's legitimacy among non-Alawites is slipping, it is forced as a matter of survival to trust only "kinsmen," thus confirming the alawite nature of the regime and weakening the allegiance of erstwhile non-alawite supporters--a self fulfilling prophecy.
Should Israel come to the aid of the Syrian rebells? If there is a risk that prolonged fighting in Syria will spillover into Lebanon and Israel, by way of the of the Golan Heights, and if Israel is deeply concerned that a post-revolutionary gov't in Damascus might be more actively hostile to its interests than Assad, perhaps Netanyahu should officially encourage the anti-Assad forces and even contribute a token gesture of aid to the rebells. Fat chance, I know--rebells have already courted the Likud gov't for suport and have been rebuffed, apparently. But an Israeli-Sunni alliance against Assad (and Iran and Hezbollah, by extension), with cooperation laundered through Turkey perhaps, could result in a game-changing re-alignment of interests in the Middle East, and for the better.
What about Hezbollah? Are there signs of similar hedging/wavering vis-a-vis the Assad regime? The "mainstream" Levantine Shiites have never fully accepted the orthodoxy of the Alawites as Shiites. And there are twelver and other Shiite groups in Syria who are oriented eastward to Iraq and Iran. To what extent are these groups playing a formidable role in the insurgency and contributing the internal divisiveness of the opposition in and outside Syria? If the Assad regime starts to crack, might we fear that some kind of Hezbollah/Iraq/Iran Shiite "axis" will intervene?
As always, the big questions at such pivotal moments in "nascent" revolutions (if Syria's beleaguered opposition movement can be describe as such) is the loyalty of the military command and rank-and-file soldiery: how tightly bound to the Assad regime is the military? Would mounting international pressure (sanctions, arming of the opposition) alter the incentive structures within the high military command? Compare Egypt recently, and Iran 30 yrs ago: at what point does the military gamble that its survival and continued influence and power lay on the side of reform, or perhaps even a coup? And when do internal military command structures break down; when do soldiers on the street decide to stop firing on civilians? From what I've been reading and hearing, the Syrian military is tightly controlled institution under orwellian security apparatus of the Assad regime. But then other experts talk about the real possibilities of a military coup, which, if they are correct, must mean there is at last the potential for and uncoupling of military/regime interests.
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As Max Weber pointed out, the succes or failure of a revolution often turns not on the behavior of the population at large, but rather the loyalty of the ruler's "staff"--court favorites, military commanders, etc. It seems like the Assad regime, in privileging a narrower circle of Alawite's at the expense of Sunnis, is sowing the seeds of its own imminent unraveling: paranoid that it's legitimacy among non-Alawites is slipping, it is forced as a matter of survival to trust only "kinsmen," thus confirming the alawite nature of the regime and weakening the allegiance of erstwhile non-alawite supporters--a self fulfilling prophecy.
Should Israel come to the aid of the Syrian rebells? If there is a risk that prolonged fighting in Syria will spillover into Lebanon and Israel, by way of the of the Golan Heights, and if Israel is deeply concerned that a post-revolutionary gov't in Damascus might be more actively hostile to its interests than Assad, perhaps Netanyahu should officially encourage the anti-Assad forces and even contribute a token gesture of aid to the rebells. Fat chance, I know--rebells have already courted the Likud gov't for suport and have been rebuffed, apparently. But an Israeli-Sunni alliance against Assad (and Iran and Hezbollah, by extension), with cooperation laundered through Turkey perhaps, could result in a game-changing re-alignment of interests in the Middle East, and for the better.
What about Hezbollah? Are there signs of similar hedging/wavering vis-a-vis the Assad regime? The "mainstream" Levantine Shiites have never fully accepted the orthodoxy of the Alawites as Shiites. And there are twelver and other Shiite groups in Syria who are oriented eastward to Iraq and Iran. To what extent are these groups playing a formidable role in the insurgency and contributing the internal divisiveness of the opposition in and outside Syria? If the Assad regime starts to crack, might we fear that some kind of Hezbollah/Iraq/Iran Shiite "axis" will intervene?
As always, the big questions at such pivotal moments in "nascent" revolutions (if Syria's beleaguered opposition movement can be describe as such) is the loyalty of the military command and rank-and-file soldiery: how tightly bound to the Assad regime is the military? Would mounting international pressure (sanctions, arming of the opposition) alter the incentive structures within the high military command? Compare Egypt recently, and Iran 30 yrs ago: at what point does the military gamble that its survival and continued influence and power lay on the side of reform, or perhaps even a coup? And when do internal military command structures break down; when do soldiers on the street decide to stop firing on civilians? From what I've been reading and hearing, the Syrian military is tightly controlled institution under orwellian security apparatus of the Assad regime. But then other experts talk about the real possibilities of a military coup, which, if they are correct, must mean there is at last the potential for and uncoupling of military/regime interests.