SYRIA

Syria is testing the limits of the Arab Spring, which has seen the fall of regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and increased pressure on Governments everywhere across the region. It is clear that a lot of unsavoury things are going on in the country, and that there have recently been a lot of violent deaths; 3,500 is the number usually bandied about. Equally clear is that there is no stomach amongst the world's powers for the sort of military action that took place in Libya; partly because China and Russia would veto any U.N. resolution trying to authorise it, and partly because military action in Syria would be a completely different kettle of fish (Libya is unusual, in that most of its population live in a narrow coastal strip that could be protected from the air by planes operating from Sicily).

So, will Syria go the way of Yemen, which has been experiencing a sort of low-level civil war for months? The promising new development has been the long-awaited, but never yet materialised, "stepping up to the plate" of the Arab League, hitherto a cosy club of regional strongmen, dictators and royal autocrats, which talked a lot but generally did nothing. However, the League, which is based in Cairo, has been affected by the changes going on around it in Egypt, and has started to show what it is capable of. In March, it voted for a no-fly zone over Libya, the crucial decision which paved the way for the U.N. resolution and NATO intervention. Then, this weekend, it voted to suspend Syria from its work, and is talking to the Syrian opposition. The dumping of one of the pillars of Arab nationalism by a body committed to promoting just that is nothing short of revolutionary.

The consensus is that Syrian President Bashar Assad will have to go. I am not so sure; or, rather, I don't believe that it will happen any time soon. As Yemen demonstrates, strongmen can hang on for a long time, if key parts of society such as the army remain loyal, the opposition is split, and outsiders don't want to get directly involved. In the meantime, we should applaud the the positive developments at the League, which bode well for helping to resolve even more complex problems such as the Israeli/Palestinian dispute. 

Walter Blotscher