Syria will go through a difficult transitory period. All that which the optimists about the imminent fall of President Bashar al-Assad's regime have been trying to ignore will surface, and some of the worst prophecies of those holding on to the current rule might come true. The upcoming stage will witness turmoil and the absence of the “stability” which was always flaunted by the regime, and we might see the eruption of sectarian and regional violence. We might also witness bloody retaliations whose reasons have accumulated during the years of “stability”, which were exploited to capitalize on the divisions and hostilities instead of their handling. And it is not unlikely that the contradictions between the rural community, the city and the bourgeoisie – with its parasitical and traditional wings – reflect on the producer classes. The experiences in Egypt and Tunisia, along with dozens of other experiences in many countries around the world, have taught us that revolutions did not end with the departure of the ruler. Quite the contrary, the easiest stage of any revolution is the toppling of the regime and its symbols, while the more difficult stages lie in the conflicts among the revolutionaries themselves, and between them and those claiming to protect the revolution and the remnants of the former regime who seek to return through the window, after they were ousted from the door. This ought to be enough to deter those calling on Al-Assad to step down and to keep his entourage away from the state institutions, as long as the consequences are that dangerous. Indeed, no sane person would want to see his country proceeding toward chaos and turmoil or would consciously push it in this direction. However, there is a big “but” at this level. There is a difficulty regarding the current situation and an imminence of stalemate in light of the regime's insistence on the security solution and its replacement of the political handling with “dialogue” shows that are without value or meaning. They reveal the inability of the regime to exit the crisis. It is thus struggling between its attempts to find domestic bases through the “absent” dialogue, and the United States' looming decision to remove its cover off it once and for all. Despite its magnitude, this predicament is not what is giving the Syrian uprising its momentum, while the threats surrounding this uprising are not enough to lead to its discontinuation. At this level, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the problems facing the regime are the price it is paying for the decades of “stability,” during which it swept the internal and external problems underneath the carpet, inside the prisons and in exile. Those in power forgot that the problems that are not resolved today come back in the form of catastrophes at the first turn. The biggest proof of this is Hama's heading of the action demanding the end of President Al-Assad's rule, 29 years after it was bombed and after the tanks leveled a large portion of it to the ground. Throughout more than forty years, the Syrian regime ignored the mechanisms and laws of domestic evolution to cater to a young society, but also external evolution in light of a more entwined world. It thus raised the slogan of “stability” on the internal scene without discontinuing its interference in the neighbors' affairs, and implemented the policy of exporting its crises while believing that this constituted the epitome of resistance and rejectionism. In other words, Syria is now facing the end of the era of “stability” which was in fact a superior authoritarian stand, hostile to history and primarily to the Syrian society. One must note that the hefty price being paid by the Syrians is prone to increase each day the authority refuses to meet the demands of a Street which will not stop its action, regardless of the eloquence of the statements issued by the consultative meetings.
