The Syrian tinderbox could spread

There have been previous reports from other flashpoint towns of conscripts being shot for refusing to open fire on civilians, always officially denied. But the unprecedented regime casualty list in Jisr al-Shughour suggests the rot is spreading inside the many-headed security apparatus. Assad now faces two revolts. One on the streets, another within his own power structures. Like autocrats elsewhere, he will discover you cannot shoot down an idea.

By trying to externalise the conflict away from Syria's cities into the wider region, effectively projecting it on to Israel and potentially Lebanon and Iraq too, the regime poses a greater threat to western and Israeli interests than at any time since the 1973 Ramadan (Yom Kippur) war.

France and others are finally waking up to this evolution, with Paris demanding UN security council action. There is talk of referrals to the international criminal court. The US is considering even tougher sanctions. Assad's legitimacy "if not gone, [has] nearly run out", says Hillary Clinton. Nobody is talking about military measures, not yet at least. But momentum is building. Meanwhile William "behind-the-curve" Hague remains publicly fixated on his misjudged pursuit of Libya's Gaddafi and a Yemeni boatlift – all but oblivious to the vastly more dangerous implications of a Syrian implosion.

Recent incursions into the Israeli-occupied sectors of the Golan Heights, orchestrated by Damascus, dramatically illustrate how the Syrian conflagration could be purposefully spread. And what price a completed US withdrawal from Iraq this year if the country is destabilised by a spillover flood of Syrian combatants and refugees?

Read the entire article by Simon Tisdall at The Guardian