Regional and International
Involvement
Over the past three years the parties in
Syria have been increasingly openly supported
by external actors. Above and
beyond the internal power struggle, the
civil war has thus acquired the character
of a proxy war subsuming international,
regional and subnational conflicts. The
conflict over Iran’s regional role has especially
inflamed the Syrian civil war (see
SWP Comment 9/2012).
Iran has been supplying the regime with
financial resources and military materiel,
as has Russia.