THERE IS A CIVIL WAR RAGING IN SYRIA; YOU NEED TO AT LEAST KNOW THE BASICS

Sarah,

There is a civil war raging in Syria right now.  It's really complicated, but here is a very basic breakdown of why people are killing each other.  I also added where America stands in all of this.

Breakdown:

Syria is the Muslim country that lies directly north of Israel.(Israel conquered some land from them in 1967)  Here is the basic situation.  President Assad (more or less a dictator) is an Alawite.  Alawites are Shia Muslims and make up about 10% of the Syrian population. The majority of the population is Sunni Muslim.  During the cold war, Russia backed the Assad family and Syria acted as a counterweight to American interests in Israel.  Iran also supports the Assad family because Iran is the main Shia Muslim country and they want control to stay in the hands of Shia Muslims.  Now there is revolution against Assad which started as a pro-democracy movement but is increasingly looking like the 75% Sunni population rebelling against the minority Shia Muslims who control the country.  Other Sunni Muslim nations (Turkey and Saudi Arabia) are cautiously aligning themselves with the rebels, but thus far there has been no overt intervention.

This puts the United States in an awkward position.  Its first impulse might be to support the rebels because they are “pro democracy” and we are enemies with Russia and Iran.  However, it is much more complicated than that.  First, Al Qaeda is a Sunni sect which in addition to hating Israel and America also hates Shia Muslims.  Thus, Al Qaeda is now on the side of the Sunni rebels and Al-Qaeda fighters are pouring into the country.  It may be tough for America to justify aligning with Al Qaeda in any capacity.  Further, beyond Al-Qaeda, there are many other rebel groups that remain unidentified.  It is possible that some of them are the same groups that supply arms to Palestinian militants.  Third, the same Sunni- Shia split that is present in Syria is also present in Iraq and Lebanon, so there is a risk the conflict can spread even deeper.  Iraq is barely controlling violence between Sunni and Shia populations as it is and this violence may get even more out of hand.

Beyond practical concerns, the US also faces some diplomatic hurdles to intervention.  For the United Nations to act, the Security Council (Russia, China, Britain, France, and America) have to agree to use force.  Russia is vetoing intervention because of its alliance with Syria and China usually vetoes intervention because it doesn't want any precedent for other countries intervening in its affairs.  Democrats find this to be a legitimate barrier to intervention and think that we shouldn't intervene anyway.  Republicans think that waiting for UN support is stupid and the United States should do what they need to.  It is unclear if Republicans actually want to intervene but they definitely want everyone to know that we don't need to UN.

Oh and if you are wondering, the main difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims is that around 700 AD there was a split between Muslims as to who was the rightful successor of Muhammad (the prophet).  Most everything else between the two sects is the same.

Bottom line: This conflict is potentially explosive.