After over a year of fighting, the civil war in Syria reaches a stalemate as the war intensifies and no side manages to get the upper hand.
The rebels' abilities have been overestimated by the West as they fail to take hold of major cities and hardly succeed in holding the areas of the country that they've taken over. Atrocities have been, and are being committed by both sides of the conflict. Assad's forces poison, torture, and kill families of rebels and defectors; The more radical factions among the rebels release videos in which they kill prisoner soldiers and desecrate bodies.
But the worst is that the foreign intervention is getting wider. Assad is assisted by massive forces of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and fighters from Iran. The rebels are supported by Sunni states such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. However, most of the citizens remain on Assad's side, either because of the fear of the government's rage or probably more because they fear his downfall would drive the country to chaos. The West has called Assad to step down and allow the government to negotiate terms for its replacement. That would be the best option; It could spare a greater violence and pave the way for restoring order.
But Assad obviously refuses. Of course he does; Those of you who know a little about Syria know that the country had been ruled for decades by the Alawites, a tiny religious faction, despised by a majority of Muslims, that by way of military coup took control of the country. Assad is not fighting for his power; He's fighting for his life and the honor of his faction. His downfall would be the downfall of the Alawites, so he'd fight until his final breath.
Hezbollah's entrance into the war is something which Israel find hard to tolerate. Israel maintains a careful neutrality towards the conflict, but now that Hezbollah, Israel's sworn enemy in the last three decades, steps in, the danger is that it would take advantage of Assad's weakness to drag some of his advanced Russian weaponry into Lebanon. Hezbollah has a good reason to put as much effort as they can in defending Assad: alongside Iran, he's the greatest sponsor of the Shiite Lebanese organization. I should not mention that Hezbollah is not too popular in Lebanon, especially among the country's Suns and Christians. Assad's downfall would drastically weaken them.
Israel now threatens Assad that any attempt to transfer advanced arms to "irresponsible hands" would not be tolerated. The press says that Israel already attacked some storage units of armaments that Assad planned to give Hezbollah.The greatest irony of the situation is that even though Israel's liberals support the popular revolt in hope of democratization in Syria, realists know that it's much more likely that Assad's downfall would create anarchy in Syria, and horrible battles of powers similar to what happened Iraq after Saddam's downfall. The realists know that anarchy in Syria would drastically increase the security threats on Israel from radical and terrorist organizations within the country. Israel is "torn between Scylla and Charybdis". Its sworn enemies fight alongside Assad, but if he falls, things could get worse.
And then there's Russia. Despite the efforts of Israel and the West to prevent the Russians from selling Assad their advanced systems, they're bent on doing it anyway. It's not just about money; It's about status. The Russian refuse to do what America tells them to do. It's the new cold war; Not as freezing as the first one, yet New Russia would do anything to reclaim its status as superpower. Even if it means assisting real bastards.
So this is how poor Syria becomes the center of conflict not only between rival Muslim factions, but also between rival Mideastern states, agents of global jihad, and rival superpowers.
Popular revolt against a despot? Like Zack De La Rocha said, Freedom? Yeah, right!