What's Really Going On In Syria

The Fog Of Civil War -- Stephen Starr, Foreign Policy

What's really going on in Syria is too complicated to fit in a headline.

PAPHOS, Cyprus – In Jdaydieh Artouz, a town 11 miles southwest of Damascus that is home to a mix of Sunnis, Christians, and Alawites, protests have been taking place almost daily for well over a year. Yet the security forces, centered at a police station a few hundred yards up the street from where the protesters regularly gather, have largely ignored them. One wet, cold January night while out to pick up some sharwama sandwiches, I watched cars with Bashar al-Assad's face emblazoned across the rear window pass within inches of the indomitable demonstrators. Neither side appeared perturbed. With the exception of isolated incidents in which several protesters were killed, the town remained peaceful throughout the uprising -- that is until Thursday, July 19, when rebel fighters fired RPGs at the police station, killing five officers.

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My Comment: In all conflicts and revolutions there are three groups. Those who want revolution and change and are fighting for it, those who do not want change and are fighting for that, and those (the mass majority) who do not want to fight. Stephen Starr gives an insight into this third group.