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And I'm Melissa Block.
Call it war; call it political stalemate - whatever you call it, the situation in Syria is getting worse by the day. After more than 10 months, the protest movement remains steadfast in its call for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But Assad's government has been equally steadfast, cracking down violently on protesters. Caught in the middle: Soldiers from the Syrian army have begun defecting and fighting for the opposition.
NPR's Kelly McEvers reports now on the latest international efforts to stop the violence and force political change.
KELLY MCEVERS, BYLINE: One thing that's for sure about the Syrian uprising is that there's nothing romantic about it. There's no Tahrir Square filled with hundreds of thousands of people; no Mad Max dudes in the desert, fighting Moammar Gadhafi with guns they've welded to the backs of their pickup trucks.
Instead, to get an idea of what the Syrian uprising is like, day in and day out, you only have to check my NPR colleague Ahmed al-Omran's Twitter feed.
AHMED AL-OMRAN: (Reading) Video shows a little girl who was reportedly wounded when security forces attacked. ... Graphic: Video shows a man who was shot in both legs in...
MCEVERS: If it sounds disconnected and surreal, that's because it is. Analysts here in the region say since the uprising began last March, the Syrian regime has been expert at keeping the violence just low enough that the story doesn't burst onto the international stage.
AL-OMRAN: (Reading) Heartbreaking - 2-year-old boy crying after he was reportedly shot...
MCEVERS: But that doesn't mean the situation isn't getting more and more violent, and more and more at risk of turning into something that no one wants: a civil war.
Last month, the Arab League decided to send a group of observers to Syria, as part of a peace plan to slow the regime's brutal crackdown on protesters. But that didn't work. Activists say hundreds more people were killed, even while the observers were there.
But then, earlier this week, the Cairo-based league came up with a new plan. It calls for Assad to transfer power to a deputy who would oversee a national unity government, and parliamentary elections would follow.
The Syrian regime immediately rejected the plan. Assad is nowhere near stepping down. But neither, analysts say, was the president of Yemen at first. It took months of a massive uprising, that was also turning violent, in his country before he finally handed power to his vice president. Just this week, he traveled to the U.S. for medical treatment. Some believe it was his quiet exit from power.
Paul Salem heads the Carnegie Center for Middle East Peace here in Beirut. He says there are two reasons the Arab League plan for Syria might actually be useful.
DR. PAUL SALEM: One is that it's on the table, such that if the regime in a few of months really is in trouble, they have a fall-back option, which rather than utter collapse, they can say well, let's discuss something middle of the road, and save parts of the regime - or parts of themselves.
MCEVERS: Like the former president of Yemen did.
SALEM: Secondly, I think it helps undermine the regime's propaganda, which is that there is no middle way. You know, this is a conspiracy and the Arabs are out to get us; we have to fight. Here the Arabs saying no, we're not out to get you; we're proposing a very reasonable way forward that actually saves you.
MCEVERS: And saves your country from all-out war. Now, diplomats from Arab countries and Europe, the U.S. and Turkey are pushing for a U.N. Security Council resolution that uses this Arab League plan as a framework.
While that might sound like more paper-pushing that would fail to stop the violence on the ground, Peter Harling, of the International Crisis Group, says it's the right next step.
PETER HARLING: The only way to convince this regime that it's about time to negotiate, and not simply to talk about possible reforms, is to have a consensus within the international community.
MCEVERS: Up to now, the Assad regime has been bolstered by the fact that Russia threatens to veto a Security Council resolution on Syria. Harling says the time has come for Arabs and the West to draft a resolution the Russians can accept; a resolution that would write off any possibility of a Libya-style intervention, but one that still blames the Syrian regime for the crisis.
HARLING: And that approach would be extremely welcome, in terms of forcing the regime to realize that it cannot just forge ahead with its current course of action that will lead the country into disaster.
MCEVERS: U.N. officials say the resolution could be voted on as early as next week.
Kelly McEvers, NPR News, Beirut.