Regime or revolution: families

torn apart at Syria's front line

"Rebels say that the sectarianism of the conflict was created by Mr Assad, who began creating militias from the Alawite and Shia communities from the first protests against his rule, even though they were demanding political freedoms rather than shouting religious slogans."
I might cohere my thoughts tomorrow about why Russia isn't going to fight to the last rouble to save Assad, or even allow the conflict to risk military confrontation with the US, Israel, or anyone else, starting from the thought that what is going on in Syria is a revolution, not a proxy war, and no amount of international relations theory is going to explain the constraints on imperial power in that circumstance.