Syrian civil war: Not just about Syria

There's more to the Syrian civil war than rebels versus the regime. Syria's neighbors in the Middle East also have a stake in the conflict, which many analysts say has become a proxy for regional rivalries and competing interests.

Iraq

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has blamed an outbreak of violence in his country partly on what's going on in Syria, saying the conflict has stoked a raging fire of sectarian tensions.
Sunnis are the minority in Iraq, and, like the Sunnis in Syria, many of them are feeling oppressed by a predominately non-Sunni government. There are also long tribal ties between Iraq's Sunnis and Syria's Sunnis.
Meanwhile, Western powers are concerned that Sunni jihadist groups such as al Qaeda are moving across the porous Iraq-Syria border to battle Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Saudi Arabia

Two of Iran's biggest rivals, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are backing the Syrian rebels because they and other Persian Gulf monarchies fear the spread of Iran's influence in the region.
There is an element of sectarianism there as well. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are both led by Sunnis; Sunnis make up most of the Syrian opposition. Iran is the region's leading Shiite power.
Getting a Sunni government into power in Syria would make the Gulf states more comfortable, said Michele Dunne, director of the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East in Washington.
"Probably, their desire to change the regional sectarian and political power balance has largely dictated their policies toward Syria," she said last year.

Iran

Syria is believed to be Iran's main conduit to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the proxy through which Iran can threaten archenemy Israel with an arsenal of short-range missiles.
Iran could lose that link and a major ally if the al-Assad regime falls to a Sunni-dominated opposition. The al-Assads are Alawite, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Andrew Tabler, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has called Syria "a keystone" for Iran.
"It allows Iran to protect its power on the shores of the Mediterranean and its border with Israel, particularly its support of Hezbollah in Lebanon," he said.

Turkey

Relations between Turkey and Syria have all but collapsed since the Syrian uprising began and refugees started flooding into Turkey and other neighboring countries. Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down for his response to the uprising.
Turkey now backs the Syrian rebels with logistical support, hosting opposition groups and allowing shipments of weapons and ammunition to cross its borders.
There have also been several cross-border artillery clashes in the past year, and a Turkish fighter jet was shot down by Syrian forces over the Mediterranean.

Jordan

Since the violence began in Syria, its neighbors have taken in more than 1.5 million refugees.
The strain of these refugees has been especially tough on Jordan, which has an unemployment rate of 30% and is struggling with limited financial resources.
Jordanians are now competing with more than 450,000 Syrian refugees for scarce jobs, real estate and even water, and there is concern the adversity may lead to unrest.
"In a time where you have a very high rate of unemployment, where Jordanians are feeling economical hardship, this is making people angry," said Randa Habib, a political analyst and the author of the book "Hussein and Abdullah: Inside the Jordanian Royal Family."

Qatar

Two of Iran's biggest rivals, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are backing the Syrian rebels because they and other Persian Gulf monarchies fear the spread of Iran's influence in the region.
There is an element of sectarianism there as well. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are both led by Sunnis; Sunnis make up most of the Syrian opposition. Iran is the region's leading Shiite power.
Getting a Sunni government into power in Syria would make the Gulf states more comfortable, said Michele Dunne, director of the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East in Washington.
"Probably, their desire to change the regional sectarian and political power balance has largely dictated their policies toward Syria," she said last year.

Israel

Israel conducted airstrikes inside Syria in early May, a U.S. official confirmed, stressing that Israel is concerned about Syria transferring powerful weapons to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The al-Assad regime in Syria has long supported Hezbollah, which is fiercely anti-Israel and fought a 34-day war against Israel in 2006. Hezbollah also gets funding and weapons from Shiite ally Iran, Israel's archenemy.
"For Israel, it is very important that the front group for Iran, which is in Lebanon, needs to be stopped," Shaul Mofaz, a lawmaker in Israel's Knesset or parliament, told Israeli Army Radio.

Lebanon

Syria ended its military occupation of Lebanon in 2005, but it maintains influence through Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite militant group and political party that dominates Lebanon's government.
In late May, Hezbollah declared it is going to war in Syria on behalf of the Syrian regime.
Rebels in Syria, many of them Sunni, have vowed to retaliate, and rocket attacks from Syria reportedly struck Shiite towns inside Lebanon, where a fragile sectarian and political balance has held since the end of a civil war that wracked the country from 1975 to 1990.
There have also been internal clashes between rival armed groups. In Lebanon, just like in Syria, the Shiite and Alawite Muslim sects tend to support the Alawite Syrian regime. And many Sunni Muslims lean toward the Syrian rebels.