The Syrian uprising entered its fourth week on Friday. Information about events on the ground remains sketchy, largely due to government restrictions on the media and the fact that protests are scattered across the country. But let's look at the broader picture and what it might mean for the Assad regime.

Early in February, Syrian dissidents-in-exile called for two "days of rage". The days came and went, and the only mass presence seen on the streets was that of the security forces. Ammar Abdulhamid – himself a dissident-in-exile – wrote an article arguing that the country wasn't ready. Among other things, he pointed out that the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were "a culmination of years of on-the-ground preparations and exposure to external realities", whereas there had been no similar process in Syria.

Two months later, Abdulhamid is running a daily blog called Syrian Revolution Digest, though his earlier cautionary article is still worth reading: it explains why overthrowing the Assad regime is not going to be an easy ride.

The uprising proper started on March 18 in Deraa, where some kids – emulating Egyptian protesters – had painted graffiti saying "The people want the fall of the regime" and the over-zealous police responded by throwing them into jail.

In magnitude and character, this was very similar to the incident in Tunisia involving Mohamed Bouazizi that triggered the revolution there. If only both incidents had been handled more sensibly, you might think. But if neither of these incidents had provided the actual spark, something else would have done eventually. The whole point of authoritarian regimes is that they need to be constantly asserting their authority.

Fast-forward three weeks and Friday's protests (on the basis of amateur videos and various news reports) were the biggest yet. The centre of the rebellion is still Deraa (where some horrible things appear to be happening) but it has also spread to other cities, including several suburbs of Damascus.

This, of course, was after President Bashar had delivered his set-piece speech to parliament aimed at calming the situation down and after the announcement of various "reforms", some of which are in fact regressive (allowing female teachers to wear the niqab again) or less generous than they might appear (granting Syrian nationality to some of the Kurds). The strategy here is to appeal to sectional interests in the hope of gaining their support but so far there has been no serious attempt to address more widespread popular grievances. 

Meanwhile, the regime is in no position to throw money at the problem, as some of the Arab Gulf states have done, and in the slightly longer term the government's economic development plans could be thrown awry – especially in terms of private and foreign investment.

Largely unremarked so far, elections to the rubber-stamp parliament are due very soon (April 22, by my reckoning). These could provide a new flashpoint if the regime attempts to go ahead with them.

So, where is Syria heading from here? At present, I don't see any major cracks in the regime or signs of dissent within the security forces. One ominous sign is that the protests in a few places seem to be becoming more violent (19 police officers are 
reported dead in Deraa, along with a larger number of civilians). Predictions of a civil war, I think, are exaggerated but it could turn much more bloody.

It's hard to envisage the situation ever returning to what it was before March 18. At the same time, though, it's unlikely the regime will fall within the next few weeks. The most probable scenario is that it will battle on, at least for some months, while suffering a gradual loss of control and a decline in its authority. In the meantime, if Ali Abdullah Salih in Yemen and/or Gaddafi in Libya were finally toppled, that would add to pressure on the Assad regime.

In his speech on March 30, President Assad almost certainly blew his last chance for leading Syria along the road to reform. Unless calm can be restored through consent rather than repression, his prospects now for introducing radical changes – such as lifting the state of emergency and opening up the political system – look increasingly bleak.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 9 April 2011.