One of the most secular regimes in the Arab world – Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was another – the Syrian Baath system, based on a trinity of party, army, and ethnic loyalty, has now drawn the country into a sectarian war between its Sunni majority and the small Shia-Alawite minority that has ruled for the last 45 years. Since the rebel Free Syria Army, which is mostly Sunni, split from the regular army, Assad has used the Alawite core of his forces and the shabeeha – a notorious Alawite paramilitary group – to conduct his ruthless campaign for survival.