Syrians in civil war since the beginning

It is now the unanimous view that Syria is on the brink of a civil war. Almost all foreign ministers of major countries, despite their political positions toward the Syrian revolution, have stated this fact. Is Syria really teetering on the edge of the abyss? What are the characteristics of the civil war as far as Syria is concerned?
In fact, the country has been in a state of civil war since over a year but we do not call it by that name. There were various descriptions such as revolution, resistance and confrontation. Some even call it terrorism and foreign conspiracies. Indeed, there are some characteristics of a civil war in the Syrian situation where two groups fight each other.
The Syrian regime discovered earlier that it is incapable of withstanding the enormous tide of peaceful protests of the people whose number exceeded half a million in Hama. Hence, it made deliberate attempts to trigger a civil war, exclusively between an armed group that belongs to the regime and the unarmed group (of people) whose strength is in their numbers as well as in their insistence on challenging the regime. Some of the people have now become armed.
The regime's presence on the street is visible through the pictures of President Bashar Assad and the presence of his military and security apparatus, but, in fact, it has lost legitimacy. Firstly, because of Assad’s inability to control most parts of Syria and secondly due to his futile attempts to restore his image through holding fraudulent parliamentary elections and organizing pro-regime demonstrations. Moreover, the media project his version of a civil war raging in several Syrian cities on a daily basis.
This is because Assad has realized that the people look at him as one whose regime is unacceptable to them. However, he did not find anything wrong in spreading the propaganda that what is happening is due to “an extremist Sunni conspiracy against Alawites and other groups.”
Everyone knows that since the beginning of the resistance, there was no sectarian element involved. It is the regime that wanted the groups to go into confrontation and so it tried to take cover basically behind Assad’s Alawite Shiite group. The regime deliberately engaged this group to fight on a daily basis and create trouble as it did not enjoy the loyalty of other sections of the Syrian people.
At the same time, the regime tried to instil fear among various sections of the people like scaring Christians about Muslim citizens. It also tired to create schism among the Druzes, and wanted to change leadership of factions from one person to another. The same thing it did with the Kurds. Assad also targeted Syrian Sunnis by branding the opposition groups among them as Salafis, who want to change their peaceful civilian life-style.
He employed these tactics within the army and security forces, in addition to experimenting it in the civilian society. He encouraged the Alawites and other groups with clear orders to kill (opponents). He also deliberately circulated and publicized pictures of Alawites committing crimes against Sunnis and using abusive words to insult their religion. The aim was to split the Syrian society and create enmity among various factions.
Assad’s forces had launched attacks from the Alawite regions, which are comparatively safer, to the Sunni regions in Homs. Why did this happen? This is simply because he wanted to achieve one of the two goals. Firstly, frightening the world about a potential Lebanese-style civil war or Iraq-like situation in Syria. Secondly, he believes that the sectarian conflict is the ultimate solution since the country is on the verge of collapse.
We see in front of us a civil war in which the regime itself is a party. It is a sectarian regime deliberately tries to involve Alawites in the war, believing that they would become the last refuge and will defend them against a Sunni attack in the event of a regime collapse.
Consequently, a warning against the outbreak of a civil war has become meaningless as long as people believe that they are in a civil war in which they are fighting against an armed group that has missiles and tanks while they are prevented from taking arms. Still the people have confidence that they would be armed in the end as they have no other way to defend themselves against the ongoing killing spree. The worst and most alarming outcome of the situation is that arming themselves had become indispensable as the people have lost their hope in the international community because of its reluctance to intervene despite the repeated appeal of the Syrian people to deter the regime and halt the war.