Why it's time to call Syria a civil war

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, complaining that Russia supports Assad, said that the Russians "keep telling me they don't want to see a civil war, and I have been telling them their policy is going to help contribute to a civil war." Russian President Vladimir Putin, staunchly opposed to international action against Assad, says “we are seeing nascent elements of a civil war today. This is extremely dangerous."

UN boss Ban Ki-moon (with bonus hyperbole at the end) says ongoing massacres "could plunge Syria into a catastrophic civil war ... from which the country would never recover." (Syria's war, already devastating, could worsen. But it's amazing what countries can recover from; the US Civil War claimed more than 500,000 lives out of a population of 31 million).

So why not call Syria's civil war a civil war? My best guess is that foreign officials hope that by insisting it's a future threat, rather than a present reality, they can create more support for the notion that Mr. Annan's "peace plan" might eventually work. The fact that Syria has grown more violent, not less, as the combination of unarmed observers and jawboning has been unleashed on the problem, isn't dwelt upon. That's because the alternatives to diplomacy are foreign military action, which would be expensive, bloody, and risk a broader regional war, or doing nothing. Neither option is palatable.

Syrian rebels aren't too keen on the "civil war" label, either. They'd like to frame their uprising as one of "the people" against an illegitimate regime, not of a national house truly divided. Libya's rebels against Muammar Qaddafi also didn't like the term (I received multiple complaints from the supporters of Libyan rebels when I started using "civil war" to describe the fight in Libya last year). Mr. Assad hates the phrase too – his opponents are simply terrorists, mostly foreigners in his telling. To admit to a civil war is to admit that a large proportion of his subjects despise the regime he heads.

The London-based Syrian Observatory says that as many as 2,300 of the more than 13,400 people killed since the uprising against Assad's regime began in March last year have died since April 12.

There are of course many types of civil war, some far longer and bloodier than others. Keeping the war from deepening at home, and spreading to neighbors, is a noble international priority. But it's time to start calling this war by its proper name.

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