Five reasons why Syria may be at a tipping point

Since the start of the conflict in Syria, international observers have been watching the government of President Bashar al-Assad for signs that the once-feared regime might be vulnerable to overthrow.  Despite Syrian efforts to crush the rebels and to stifle news out of the country, this past week has shown the strongest evidence yet that the end of the Assad regime may be near.  Here are five signs that the Syrian conflict may finally be tipping in favor of the rebels.

Reuters
Syrian soldiers are celebrating after their entry al-Midan neighbourhood in Damascus, on July 20, in this photo taken on a guided government tour.

1. Assassination bombing

Reuters
Syrian soldiers are celebrating after their entry al-Midan neighbourhood in Damascus, on July 20, in this photo taken on a guided government tour.

The biggest sign, which Foreign Policy’s Mitch Prothero calls “the equivalent of blowing up the Death Star,” is clearly the July 18 assassination bombing in Damascus that killed several key members of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, including Defense Minister Daoud Rajha, Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani.  The attack prompted “unrestrained glee” among Syria’s rebels, as it showed they had a much longer reach – into the heart of the Assad regime – than international observers had guessed.
 
The most significant death, writes the Monitor’s Nick Blanford, is probably Mr. Shawkat’s. While Mr. Rajha, a Christian, headed the defense ministry, Shawkat was Assad’s brother-in-law, a member of the Alawite sect that controls Syria, and a key enforcer for the regime.  His death “suggests that no one in the regime is immune from the potential reach of the armed opposition, a grim fact that must send a shudder up the collective spine of the Syrian leadership.”

1 of 5

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.