recent events in shit in syria show us that large scale popular mobilization by itself is not sufficient to overturn authoritarian regimes that are well entrenched and well as stablished this may seem like a very obvious statement to make that popular movements popular protests by themselves are not enough to overturn long time majority minority authoritarian regimes but in the heady days of february two thousand and eleven even careful commentators on arab affairs expected that if crowds of young people gathered together and if crowds of young people mobilized one another using social media long time dictators could be tossed out and that it would only take a large scale popular protest in order to change regimes all across the arab world for a long time observers of syria what has taken place inside syria since last february is particularly puzzling we're having a hard time coming to terms with what's going on inside the country many students of syrian politics have argued that the country's new president bashar asad basically favors f reforms that he is someone who would like to change the country he is someone who is familiar with politics outside syria and might be willing to change important institutions inside syria but that the president has been blocked from carrying out reforms and that even though the president himself might like to change things around nevertheless there's a cluster of hardliners a cluster of people who want to keep the system the way it is and this cluster of hardliners is firmly established inside the bath party inside the country's main political institution and also well established and entrenched inside the security services and so the president has been blocked from carrying out the kinds of changes inside the country that he might otherwise carry out no doubt the most remarkable aspect of the current situation for many of us who are longtime observers of the country is the new president's insistence that popular discontent and popular protest has been toxic to the nation he's on a number of occasions referred to the protesters as germans thereby reflecting his own medical training thereby reflecting the idea that somehow there is something physiologically wrong with the country if there are large long large scale sustained protests against the regime the president has also insisted on a number of occasions that large scale protest is a result of interference inside syria on the part of foreign forces and it's not syrians themselves who are protesting against the government but instead it is outsiders who have come in to disrupt the orderly operation of the country and both of these statements are deeply disappointing for people who expected more of the current president who thought that perhaps the current president would work to push for changes in the existing structures in the countries if we step back just a little bit from current events we can see that there's a substantial variation across the region in the way that countries in the arab world have experienced what gregory gause calls the winter of arab discontent the winter of arab discontent has affected different countries very differently in tunisia and in egypt a long time leader a well established authoritarian figure has been removed from office more or less peacefully so at one end of the scale one in the spectrum we have is generally peaceful transition away from authoritarian rule in yemen as you heard a couple of weeks ago the president has pledged to step down on a couple of occasions in the face of widespread peaceful protest but the president of yemen has not yet stepped down so he remains in place in libya by contrast the country's ruler firmly rejected demands for reform and ended up being expelled by force in bahrain the existing leadership of the country has so far managed to survive a large scale uprising on the part of popular protestors and has so far managed to survive more or less intact and the regime remains pretty much in by her a in the way it had been before and in syria the outcome remains very much in doubt i actually listened with some trepidation to the radio driving across the bay of the san francisco bay bridge last night listening to reports that an arab league proposal to end the fighting in syria had just been announced and been agreed to by the syrian government i said to myself geez i've never on the way to the airport been forced to change what i had to say just before i came down to give a talk we still are not quite sure how things are going to work out in syria but for all of these reasons i think it's worth reviewing developments that have taken place in syria during the course of two thousand and eleven two thousand and eleven it's been a momentous here in this particular country it's been a little hard to figure out the patterns a little hard to get the story straight for what's been taking place in syria so i'm going to venture this evening to try to tell you a coherent account of h things have been developing in syria as i see them and then i'm also going to try to make at least an attempt to situate the case of syria inside a broader scholarship the broader scholarship in comparative politics on regime change and what our friends in the comparative politics field are calling civil wars under what circumstances civil war large scale internal conflict breaks out in countries so what has been the story in syria so far at the end of january two thousand and eleven the syrian military command sent troops into kurdish districts around the northern city aleppo to prevent the outbreak of anti regime demonstrations the city of aleppo is syria's large second city in the northern part of the country and the syrian armed forces deployed into outlying neighborhoods of aleppo to prevent the kurdish population from joining in popular protests and this move of syrian troops into the area around aleppo accompanied reports that kurds in the city of iraq and in the province of rocket had gone into the streets to protest after a couple of members of an organization called the organization of western kurdistan had been killed by kurdish security forces so the very first inkling that we have of popular protests comes in the north and comes from the kurdish population of the country there were small protests in the capital city of damascus in early february on the part of human rights activists liberal activists activists who said the country had been infringing on the terms of its constitution that the country was not allowing the free expression of opinion and not allowing free popular assembly so these rights activists carried out scattered demonstrations in early february on the first of march an individual named assam a dean monsoor took up a position in the middle of one of the main squares of damascus and raised a banner that carried the slogan quote we have had enough but shar save us from the gang a quite remarkable event clearly political act in a country where some of these public political acts are rare and notice what the are you notice what the demand was the demand was for the president to step in and protect the country protect the population from the gang of people around the president who were blocking reform or the gang of people around the president who were corrupt and taking advantage of the country's economy in mid march two dozen women gathered in front of the interior ministry in central damascus and these two dozen women that gathered outside the front door of the interior ministry demanded that family members who had been imprisoned by the government and who had not been subjected to fair trials should be released immediately and they brought petitions to the ministry of the interior to release their family members from custody when these two dozen women carried out this small peaceful protest in front of the interior ministry this action sparked a much larger protest in the area of central damascus called martyrs square and a much larger set of popular disorders erupted around the fringes of these women more people took to the streets more people started clashing with the security services and they kind of small riot erupts in the center of damascus in the senate in the mid middle weeks of march after this after this incident security forces come out to the streets of damascus in force and the security services make sure that nothing like this happens again in martyr square nothing like this escalates out of control in the center of the capital notice in this very first the very initial part of protests in syria we see a kind of pattern where the regime response to popular protest with a mixture of sticks and of carrots on the one hand it's clear that the security services and the military commanders especially in the capital respond to any protests by breaking up the demonstrations by force and the regime does use coercion to break up some of these early protests but the government in early march also response to the popular protests with some concessions with some carrots as well on the seventh of march government officials announced that they were going to provide jobs for ten thousand university graduates in syria by giving support to private sector companies under the bath during the socialist years in syria all the university graduates were guaranteed a job quite different from the united states of america but over the last few years the syrian government has been unable to carry out that promise but now the syrian authorities promised that funds would be made available and loans would be given to small private sector companies to allow ten thousand university graduates every year to find some kind of employment on the eleventh of march even more remarkably suddenly facebook but came available inside syria facebook had been censored facebook had been blocked don't ask me what this means i have no idea facebook is or how exactly it works but access to facebook had been blocked prior to this time but in a major concession on the eleventh of march facebook suddenly became available asad also around this time announced that he was going to give amnesty for one thousand political prisoners and that one thousand political prisoners would be immediately released noticed the regime is making some concessions the regime is responding at least in some positive way to some of the demands that have been made at the very beginning of the protests but this initial cycle of protest and  reaction was eclipsed and is pretty much forgotten today when a much more severe outbreak of unrest erupted in the southern part of the country in the provinces around iraq near the border of jordan in the third week of march and much larger scale much more under control popular protests erupted in this part of the country as march went along the disorders around iraq famously began after a group of schoolchildren wrote on one of the buildings in the town a little bit of anti bath the graffiti by all accounts the graffiti that was written on the building says said something like the people want the regime to fall the people want the falling of the bashar al assad regime which is similar to the kinds of slogans that have been made in cairo similar to the kinds of slogans that have been raised in tunisia but the police cracked down on these poor school kids the police brought them into the police station interrogated them by all accounts threatened them with imprisonment and when the police responded with such force did these poor school kids in the southern part of the country the towns and villages around erupted in anger and large scale protests continued persisted in the southern part of the country day after day and as the protests continued down in the southern part of the country riot police gradually started firing into the crowd and the protests stopped becoming so peaceful the protests started to be an occasion for the use of violence the use of force against the protesters the state sponsored media at first blamed the unrest down in the south on what the syrian newspapers called palestinian radicals so the very first charge was that all of this order came from some of the palestinians who were living in a refugee camp down in the south part of the country but after a couple of days of blaming palestinians for the unrest the regime then started to charge that what it called quote an armed to gang had started the protest and an armed gang was carrying years in the south the implication was that this armed gang had links across the border into jordan perhaps the armed gang was somehow connected with smuggling somehow connected with illicit trade going across the border people operating outside the laws of the country the regime also occasionally charged that the new head of the muslim brothers in syria was taking the muslim brothers on a more violent course than the organisation had followed for the previous ten or fifteen years the regime charged that the new head of the muslim brothers had announced that the muslim brothers might resume militant activity against the regime and the muslim brothers had not carried out militant activity against the regime since one thousand nine hundred two in fact the muslim brothers have turned very much in the direction of liberal constitutionalism very much in the direction of liberal reform rather than armed struggle against the regime but sure enough there is a new head of the muslim brothers in syria new head of the muslim brothers have been associated with some of the armed struggle of the one nine hundred seventy s so the regime charged that the muslim brothers were just about to embark on attacks against the regime as well that its orders in iraq then gradually escalated gradually became more and more violent the regime found itself on able to suppress those disorders the way it had suppressed the popular protests in damascus disorders quickly spread then to la to kenya along the coast and lattakia exploded into protest when opposition activists clashed with probe government marchers and counter marches took place inside the city government supporters attacked opposition marchers there were fist fights and clubbing back and forth between these two groups of popular protesters there were bridgeport's in lattakia that the police were being shot at and that the police were being shot at by what the government called sunni elements sunni elements mainstream muslim political activists mainstream muslim political activists who might well have connections across the border in northern lebanon and when it looked when it looks clear and it does look clear to me that police were being shot at as well as the police shooting into the crowds the government moved some of its large military forces lattakia and the government cracks down on live to kiev by moving army units into the city and by moving units of the republican guard into law take as the fighting was flaring lattakia the population of the city of hama in the north central part of the country took to the streets as well and the rebellion spreads next into hama by the end of march violence had also erupted in the rural areas around damascus so even though the capital city itself does not exhibit very many popular demonstrations popular unrest in the countryside outside the city has flared as well by this time begun vermont was organizing pro regime demonstrations to respond to the opposition and by the end of march then the government was organizing very large scale marches to support the government very large scale marches to pledge their continuing loyalty to the regime and the continuing loyalty to president bashar asad in particular on the thirtieth of march president bashar asad finally went on television to address the country and there were lots of people who were wondering why the president had not said anything prior to this time the unrest had been going on for almost a month finally on the thirtieth of march president all asad went on television and in his speech to the country the president admitted that the country's reform process had basically stalled out the political reforms had not been made popular expectations for change in the country had not been m and that the country had not carried out the kind of promise that people had the expectations that people had when president bashar asad took over as president but the president blamed for stalling out the reforms a number of x terminal events rather than anything inside the country the president blamed the palestinian uprising of the year two thousand for preventing reforms from taking place he blamed the united states invasions of afghanistan and iraq for blocking the reform process and then he especially blamed the two thousand and six israel lebanon war for putting a roadblock in the process of reform so he basically charge that regional international events had prevented the country from going in the direction of opening up the political system the president  farther and charged that all of the present unrest was a result of what he called conspiracies and that there were conspiracies against the nation conspiracies against syria from the outside it wasn't syrians themselves who were responsible for the unrest but rather small groups of people who did not have the national interest at heart on the other hand during that immediately after this speech the government announced that it was going to create a special committee to study lifting the emergency law in the country the country has been under a state of emergency since  all kinds of political liberties all kinds of constitutional guarantees have been proscribed since nine hundred sixty three and the government announced that now it was time to consider lifting the state of emergency law the government also announced at that time that it was going to set up a special commission to review a census that had been carried out in one nine hundred sixty two now we might wonder what in the world is the political importance of a census that had been taken in one thousand nine hundred sixty two but the one nine hundred sixty census had consistently discriminated against the country's kurdish population as many as two hundred thousand kurds that had lived in the country all their lives that had been born and raised in syria were not counted as citizens in the one nine hundred sixty two census and six and since nine hundred sixty two hundreds of thousands of kurds living in the northeast part of the country had been denied the rights of citizens the president announced that now it's time to reconsider citizenship for the kurds as soon as this announcement was made there were large scale marches in kurdish parts of the country especially in the key and i'll commission large scale marches in which the protesters chanted we want freedom as well as citizenship so some kurds announce that citizenship wasn't enough just reversing the one nine hundred sixty tuesday census wasn't enough from now on it would be freedom and the constitutional rights guaranteed to syrian citizens that had to be given to the country the second week of april saw attacks on army stations and police stations in the coastal town  disorders read to by me ya us in the second week of april and once again the authorities link these attacks on the army and attacks on police to a sunni network located in northern lebanon and charged that certainly is lamis to activists are crossing the border into syria and are based outside the country the authorities responded to the unrest in by yes by locking down the city sending the armed forces around the city cutting off all contact between the city and the outside world on april eighteenth then thousands of residents of the city of homes in the middle part of the country march into the street and occupy one of the main squares of the city they occupy the main square the clock tower square right in the middle part of the city and the citizens of homes march out and occupy clocktower square following the death of one of the leaders of a tribal confederation in homes province the leader of the four hour clan excuse me who had died under mysterious circumstances and at least it's this killing that precipitates or sparks the popular protest inside oddly enough as the disorder spreads in homes as the conflict escalates around homes the ministry of the interior announces that the emergency law has been rescinded and that the country no longer exists under a state of emergency that whatever constitutional provisions had been present before the state of emergency had now been reinstated the interior ministry also announces at this point that it's abolishing the state security court the state security court that it's sentenced many political activists to prison that head that had broken up organizations on the grounds that they were political organizations a week after this the armed forces finally move into danger are in force and the syrian armed forces carries out a massive military operation in the southern part of the country as soon as the armed forces move into the draw in force the armed forces then move in to bani ass in force and tanks and artillery forces are used against the general population of bonn yes the reports are that as soon as the tanks are finished in bonn yes they will move in the direction of homes in their reports that are already on the road headed in the direction of this important central