The Lybian "intervention" seems well on its way to a full scale war complete with NATO ground troops invading the country now that Libyan separatists have promised to honor all contracts with western concerns (read: oil leases and production agreements). In the meantime the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his security forces have killed
500 or more protesters during the 50 day uprising. About 80 soldiers have been killed. Protests have not spread to the largest cities, Damascus or Aleppo, where
a tight-knit elite is prepared for a protracted struggle to preserve the ruling family's power. They have portrayed the struggle to western media as "us or chaos", while intimating that Syrian stability very much is in the security interests its neighbor, Israel. Assad's government is superficially secular and has created some prosperity based on Arab nationalism (Baathist), but it is far from a democracy. Syrian security forces maintained a tight control over civil society until now. National policy is formulated by a ruling elite composed of the Bashar family and a circle of business friends with the final say on matters resting with President Assad. The opposition is made up of young activists who have been supported by American financial aid for the past five years, but there is no readily identifiable leadership and they are disorganized. Syria is much more populated than Libya--22 million versus 6 million, and it is ethnically and religiously diverse. If a civil war were to break out from the protests, it would be extremely difficult to control or contain much like the Shia-Sunni civil war in Iraq during the US occupation. Moreover, well equipped and trained government forces remain loyal to the forty year old Assad regime, unlike the situation in Libya.
