NYT: Fear of Civil War Mounts in Syria as Crisis Deepens

[riderinthestorm]

7. Another proxy war between Russia and the US. Putin is upping the ante I fear

by directly engaging in propping up Assad, he's aligning himself against the US (and their regional proxy Israel).

I absolutely believe Assad will hold onto power (there's no oil in Syria so nobody's going to help there). With Russia deciding to play chicken with the US in the region, it's going to turn incredibly ugly very fast or settle into another cold war-like stalemate. Either way the Syrian people are going to suffer and unfortunately with the big guns now trained on them, they are never going to have "freedom". Ever. Their revolution is essentially over and the big players are going to call the shots at the top even as the Syrian people continue to beat themselves to death against the gates of House Assad for 20 years.

I almost laughed (almost) when I saw what the Emir of Qatar said - unbelievable bluster. There's no love lost between Qatar and Russia. The Emir has basically just told the Russians to fuck off and aligned with the US. It's my opinion the Arab League is too unstable to sustain all the players breaking off into Russia v US teams, and sending troops into Syria as proxies for the big guys will have no appeal ultimately in the end.