Elsewhere, tribal loyalties may yet play a key role in the unfolding battle for power in Syria. Border regions in the country are largely tribal areas. As the country spirals into violence and the demand for weapons grows, winning the loyalty of those living close to the smuggling routes is crucial for both sides. Weapons and Sunni Muslim insurgents are already seeping through the porous border between Iraq and Syria, joining their "brothers" in the fight against the ruling minority Alawite regime.
As it grapples for control, the regime has sought ever more brutal means of exercising power over the country's tribes. Sheikh Nawaf al-Bashir, head of the prominent Baqara tribe in Syria, recently revealed that Syrian authorities had forced him to conduct an interview with a Syrian state television channel "with a gun to his head" as he professed his tribe's support for the government. The Baqara tribe is one of the largest tribes in Syria, encompassing an estimated 1.2 million Syrian nationals.
As the crisis in Syria deepens, there are signs of dangerous sectarian enmity. Amid the ongoing violence, the fears, insecurities and ideals of both the Sunni and the ruling minority Alawite population are driving deep and dangerous social divisions that threaten to ignite a dangerous and bloody civil war.
In many ways the revolutions of the "Arab spring" have been uprisings of unprecedented unity. Autocratic dictatorships have yielded to millions calling with one voice for the right of self-determination, and for a new national democratic leadership for their country. Time will tell the result. Libyan author Hisham Matar once wrote, "nationalism is as thin as a thread, perhaps that's why many feel that it needs to be anxiously guarded."
