User blog comment:Daxus Inferno/Real Countries?/@comment-5789047-20130402135456/@comment-3398633-20130403010110

I meant hundreds of thousands in Turkey (of which there are 750,000 Alawites). There are millions more living in Syria, and about a hundred thousand in Lebanon. The man has about three million very scared people backing him, since he is vital to their survival as a people. So as with North Korea, I'll be putting my money on Assad winning, since he and his people are fighting for survival. Its one of the few groups that have another reason other than power and prestige for fighting in such a conflict, and supporting the man the rest of the nation hates.