Editorial: Syria’s neighbors are growing restless

By: David Ignatius

The Middle East sometimes resembles a string of detonators wired to explode together — and this seems especially true now of Syria and its neighbors. There is political instability nearby in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, as the Arab uprising moves through its second year. In each of these countries, the leadership maintains power in a balancing act. Only Turkey, with its triad of a strong economy, army and political leadership, seems genuinely stable.

Fear of blowing up the region — and spawning even more Sunni-Shiite sectarian war — is one reason the Obama administration has refused to arm the Syrian opposition. Officials fear that militarizing the conflict, without reliable Syrian allies or a clear endgame strategy, could produce unintended consequences much like those of the Iraq war.

Administration officials expect Kofi Annan’s peace plan will fail, but they don’t want to give up on the former U.N. secretary general’s effort yet. Better to let the planned 300 U.N. observers travel in Syria, they reason, and perhaps encourage a new round of protest that would show that President Bashar al-Assad’s rule is doomed.

What makes this period of Arab revolution so complicated is that the new themes of liberation, culminating in this week’s Egyptian presidential election, are becoming interwoven with ancient ethnic hatreds. Analysts from Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon describe the growing tensions in each country, as these factors play out:

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