Is Syria Like Iraq In 2004?

From A Distance, Syria 'Feels' Like Iraq In 2004 -- Dan Murphy, Christian Science Monitor

There's some hope for a faster end to the fighting – with British Prime Minister Cameron hinting at safe passage for Assad if he decides to quit the fight. But the outlook is grim.

Mass casualty suicide car bombs. Kidnappings and executions of noncombatants for having the wrong political views. Religious antagonism. An expanding circle of death beyond leaders and fighters to their loved ones. Violence that can descend almost anywhere in an instant, one part traditional combat, two parts terror tactics and civilian ambushes carried out by a patchwork of militias with murky allegiances and ideologies.

That paragraph well describes Iraq at the start of 2004. The real post-Saddam bloodletting was just getting underway, and while death squads and suicide bombings were spreading dread from Basra in the south to Mosul in the north, almost no one had a full handle on what was happening, or the horrors that were to come. I certainly didn't see what was coming, or at least didn't want to believe what I was seeing on the ground.

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My Comment: I remember my friends who were serving in Iraq (British and American) telling me on how shocked they were at the level of sectarian hatred and violence that was starting to break out (2004-2005) They were completely outgunned .... with the only virtue being that both groups were focused on each other and not on the allied forces. But it was only when the Al-Askari Mosque was bombed in 2006 that all hell broke loose which only burned out after many killings and the U.S. military surge. Is the same happening in Syria .... from my vantage point, it is much worse .... and there is no U.S. or foreign military presence to split apart the combatants.