What will happen to Syria?

[Epimethean]

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Syria is an oil producing country, although production has peaked and is in decline. (as pretty much throughout the Middle East)

The desired US outcome is US control of Syrian oil, which actually belongs to the US by divine right.

The US will probably get its way,at least in the short term.

[Cato]

[Epimethean]

Unfortunately, Russia has a vested interest in Syria.

[Minimalist]

Judging from Egypt, an Islamo-fascist state will emerge as fucking "allah" is the only thing they can agree on.

[Ziploc Surprise]

I have friends of mine who's very large extended family live in Syria. Most of them are taking refuge temporarily in the U.S. The friend of mine has an interesting attitude about the situation. He said "well they (the Syrian people) are the one's who chose to rebel. " Then he said something about how they should not be surprised about the consequences. It was said with a "they have to accept the consequences for this" attitude. I wish I could have questioned him further but he didn't really want to talk about it and our conversation was interrupted shortly after I asked him about his country. So I let it go.

[cratehorus]

As long as the Alawites are dead, or out of Syria, I'm happy, they are a neo fascist organization, they are only 15% of the population, controlling Syria, because they are a self-proclaimed supreme race. How did Saddam a Sunni, control Iraq which is a majority Shia, and Assad a Shia, control Syria which is a majority Sunni?

I smell Europeans......

[Anomalocaris]

[Cato]

The best thing that could happen for the Syrian people is for the U.S. and Russia to keep their mouths shut, and let some idiot throw a rock across the Turkish border. I say let the Turks sort this out. Their backyard, they are more than capable and will give some welcomed peace to the Syrians.

The best Assad can hope for now is a country that will give him asylum. Assad has seemed to ingnore the fate of Khadafi.

It is precisely because of the fate of khadafi that Assad is now empowered to crush the rebellion and survive. If the syrian rebellion came before the Libyan rebellion, Assad would have been toppled. As it is, he would survive.

Turkey will not topple Assad because Toppling Assad serves western interests and greatly harms Russian interests, right now turkey would want neither.

I am surprised how many people in the west actually think our own propaganda is worth a bucket of spit outside the western world.

I think we agree. This is why I said the best scenario is for the U.S. and Russia to stand back and let Turkey help settle this; whether militarily or diplomatically. Either way, Assad is toast; it's now just a matter of how many more must die before this happens.

[Autumnlicious]

Explain why Assad is "toast".

I see that he now has every reason to use any means to fight the rebels, especially given that Russian and the US are deadlocked over dealing with it, and, as Chuck pointed out, Turkey has no reason to visibly upset the power balance between the US and Russia. This means he might become more entrenched and has a better chance of surviving the revolt, if only through the knowledge that he must succeed or die like Gaddhafi.