Syria: a civil war (closed)

[JMA]

Syria cannot be compared to South Africa, as JMA suggested; there is very little external investment in the economy and whilst some might have informal sanctions as party to 'evil' that is nothing like the informal, formal and legal sanctions on South Africa.

There is a parallel in the lack of legitimacy, the use of a state of emergency (for fifty years in Syria) and I suspect an internal debate between repression and reform. What I found in South Africa amidst the police and securocrats before the Rubicon speech, way back in 1985, was a realisation that reform had to come and repression was only a temporary option.

Somehow I doubt if Assad realises he has lost.

"Crossing the Rubicon" as in passing a point of no return. A head of state clearly reading the internal and external mood badly wrong and thereby hastening and indeed ensuring the end of the regime. Lets sit back and see what happens now.

[tequila]

I think perhaps the best analogy with South Africa is that both Botha and Assad presided over regimes whose base support was in a minority which dominated the military and security services and which was terrified of the consequences of releasing control. In Syria's case, unfortunately, there is no Mandela figure who exercises overarching moral control over a semi-unified opposition. Instead there is an inchoate and disparate opposition and thus no guarantee for the Alawites that they will not be purged from the country if the Assad regime falls.