Scott Lucas, University of Birmingham<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Among those glancing at Syria\u2019s seven-year conflict, a simple but misleading declaration is circulating: \u201cAssad is winning\u201d. But the Assad regime has only survived because of the political, economic and military life support it\u2019s had from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. It is now entirely dependent on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that\u2019s for rule over just a part of Syria. The opposition, though very dependent on Turkish protection, holds much of the north-west, and it also \u2013 for now \u2013 controls territory in the south along the Jordanian border. Kurdish groups have taken much of northern and eastern Syria after pushing back the so-called Islamic State (IS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Beverley Milton-Edwards, Queen\u2019s University Belfast<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Israeli government faces a growing security challenge on its southern border, where there are weekly protests by thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. But the more serious security concern is the country\u2019s extremely tense northern border with Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Israeli government\u2019s greatest fear is a dramatic regional escalation, and the possibility that Syria will become a theatre of open conflict between Russia and states like the US, UK and France. If the US responds to the chemical weapons attack in Douma with intense force, that might set off a domino effect that could draw Israel further into the fight \u2013 especially if Iran takes the Assad government\u2019s side in response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can read the rest of the article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Article originally appeared on The Conversation.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The featured image<\/a><\/em> has been used courtesy of a <\/em>Creative Commons license. <\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the days since an alleged chemical attack outside Damascus, the pressure in Syria has risen dramatically. With outside powers launching missile strikes on Syrian ground targets as the Assad government\u2019s backers warned them against it, here\u2019s a rundown of who the major players are with a contribution from Prof Beverley Milton-Edwards. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2472,"featured_media":4351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[459,479,305],"class_list":["post-4349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-issues","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-syria"],"mb":[],"acf":{"authors":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":9774,"key":"field_66d0cbf58f930","label":"Authors","name":"authors","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"relationship","value":null,"menu_order":1,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"post_type":["authors"],"post_status":["publish"],"taxonomy":"","filters":["search"],"return_format":"id","min":0,"max":10,"allow_in_bindings":0,"elements":["featured_image"],"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"authors","_valid":1}},"description":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":9776,"key":"field_66d2183027749","label":"Description","name":"description","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"wysiwyg","value":null,"menu_order":3,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"default_value":"","allow_in_bindings":0,"tabs":"all","toolbar":"basic","media_upload":0,"delay":1,"_name":"description","_valid":1}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/76\/2018\/04\/Syria.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"mfb_rest_fields":["title","jetpack_featured_media_url","jetpack_sharing_enabled","amp_enabled"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2472"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Israel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n