Russia: Syria rebels obsession with Assad blocks peace

[RiverNoord]

6. Um... Ok...

Not to put too fine a point on it:

Wikipedia? Not exactly an authoritative source for information on currently ongoing civil wars.

Nevertheless, the timeline described in your link starts on January 26 with an act of self-immolation and the first violence against security forces, after many protests, is described as taking place on March 20, almost three months later. The violence was the result of protests and heavy handed security responses (in Daraa, a small city of around 100,000, as compared to pre-war Damascus - around 1,700,00) which came about because of the ongoing detention since the 6th of March of a group of boys, all under 15, for anti-regime graffiti.

The current civil war is the result of decades of Allawite suppression, sometimes extremely violent, of the Sunni majority of the country. I don't claim to have any insight into who are the 'good guys' or the 'bad guys' or whether the question even makes sense.

One more thing - what modern country with a population over, say, a couple of million, doesn't contain people looking to engage in armed conflict of some sort? I'd say that there are a great many more in the U.S. than there ever were in pre-war Syria. Some people are always looking for a fight.