“There Is No Compromise”
BEFORE THERE was war in Syria, there was revolution. In early 2011, the Arab Spring protests swept the Middle East and North Africa. Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak stepped down. Anti-authoritarian uprisings erupted in Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain. Yet Syrians were hesitant. Everyone remembered what had happened in 1982, when Hafez al-Assad’s government massacred thousands in response to an uprising in Hama. There were isolated incidents: A man lit himself on fire in Hasaka. Protesters demonstrated in Damascus after police beat up a shopkeeper. There were calls on Facebook and Twitter for a “Day of Rage.” But nothing took.
In early March that year, police in the southern city of Daraa ripped out the fingernails of teenagers who had been arrested for spray-painting anti-regime slogans. When the teens’ families rallied to call for their release, security forces fired on the crowd, killing six. In the following days, protesters expanded their demands on the government: release political prisoners, end corruption, and repeal the country’s nearly 50-year-old emergency law. Rioters set fire to local headquarters of the Baath Party and Syriatel, a company owned by the president’s cousin, believed to be the richest man in Syria.
Bashar al-Assad tried to stop the mayhem
