As Syria goes through a slate of "elections" and the biggest general strike to date, Andrew Reynolds worries that the revolution can't succeed:
That nation is poised on a knife edge: it could plunge into civil war or come to rest in a valley of repression where Bashir al-Assad's opponents have fallen. The entrails of the Arab Spring suggest that Assad will be the fifth dictator to fall only if the Syrian military irrevocably splits or if international military force intervenes on the side of the opposition.
Neither looks likely. The Syrian army is dominated by Assad's Alawite minority and foreign powers have demonstrated no stomach to insert themselves into the quagmire of a civil war in Syria which would spark tensions, not just between Turkey, Israel and Lebanon, but would ominously see NATO, Russia and China picking sides.
Paul Salem is more upbeat. Joshua Goldstein watches Homs for signs of escalation into a full-on civil war, but Elliott Abrams thinks it has already begun. Below are some Army defectors documenting the use of Iranian weapons by Syrian troops during the crackdown:
This is a funeral/protest in Douma today:
This man was murdered in Idlib yesterday:
The Dish 