Syrian Crisis

The Crisis in Syria Since the early spring of 2011, Syria has be enveloped by a bloody and violent civil war that has cost the lives of over 100,000 civilians and over 1 million people have had to flee to neighboring countries such as Jordan and Turkey(http://syriahr.com/en/). With so much bloodshed and continuing escalation in the conflict, many in the international community believe that this war could last many more years or even decades. As we will see the conflict that stemmed in March of 2011, resulted for many different reasons which make peace very difficult to achieve (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24167762). The current President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, is currently trying to rout out the rebel groups from many key cities in Syria such as Damascus and Homs. Because Assad is a member of the Alawite community in Syria, which makes up a substantial minority of the population, a majority of those who are fighting against him in the rebel camps feel that Assad’s government is not listening to the will of the majority of Syrians but rather his group specifically (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/02/syria-massacre-reports-alawites-assad). Peace has been unable to be achieved because Assad refuses to relinquish his office which has been a key demand by the rebel forces. Assad rejects the idea that he should step down from office because he believes he was lawfully elected as head of state and he will only step down in 2014 when elections are held again. Because negotiations have failed, the fighting has only continued to escalate. With powerful fanatical groups such as Hezbollah supporting the Syrian president with armed troops and conducting military operations within the borders of Syria, the death tolls have continued to rise. Syria’s president does not feel threatened by staying in power because he has the backing of powerful nations such as Russia, China and Iran. Because of this support, the Western powers have been able to

Cited: Frieden, Lake, and Schultz. 2013. World Politics. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Jamil Qadri. 2013 “Syria crisis: Minister says civil war has reached stalemate”. Bbc.co.uk. September 20th 2013. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24167762 Steele, Jonathan. 2013.” Syria: massacre reports emerge from Assad 's Alawite heartland”. theguardian.com. October 2nd 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/02/syria-massacre-reports-alawites-assad Afanasleva, Dasha. 2013. “Syrian defector has evidence of March chemical attack: opposition”. Reuters.com September 3rd 2013. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/03/us-syria-crisis-defection-idUSBRE9820KN20130903