No Easy Solution Seen for Ending Syrian Conflict Youssef Badawi/European Pressphoto Agency In Damascus last week, a rally was held in support of President Bashar al-Assad. BEIRUT, Lebanon - Syria is locked in an ominous and violent stalemate: With overwhelming firepower and a willingness to kill, President Bashar al-Assad could hold on to power for months or even years, keeping the opposition from controlling any territory and denying it breathing space to develop a coherent, effective leadership, according to analysts, diplomats and Syrians involved in the uprising. Syrians and regional analysts say sheer force alone is unlikely to eradicate what has become a diffuse and unpredictable insurgency, one able to strike out even after the government has used crushing force against centers of resistance like Homs, Idlib and Dara'a. Broad areas of the country are hostile territory for government troops, and attackers have managed to hit centers of power, even in the capital, Damascus. But with so much blood spilled, diplomacy stalled and both sides refusing to negotiate, there is no obvious path out. That has made Syria stand out among the countries swept up in the regional Arab revolts, impervious to a sustained popular uprising and so far beyond the reach of outside intervention. It has become a war of attrition that grows more dangerous as it goes along. Many Syrians say that Mr. Assad cannot afford to stop shooting and can never go back to ruling as he did before, when his authority stemmed from the bonds of sect, business interests and fear. If he dials back his repression, Syrians of many political stripes say with certainty, citizens will demand his ouster. "We will see millions of protesters in the streets, not hundreds," said a Christian engineer in the old city of Damascus, who, like many people interviewed recently in Syria, refused to be fully identified for fear of reprisal. And the regime knows that. The reverberations of a protracted sectarian conflict in Syria have begun to spread across a region where the geopolitical calculus is already being altered. Tensions have spilled over borders into Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan and raised fears that radical Islamic militants will find a new cause for recruitment. The quickest ways out - if Mr. Assad were to leave, or if insiders were to stage a coup - also seem highly unlikely, analysts said. Insulated from all but his inner circle, Mr. Assad appears to believe that his strategy is succeeding. The security officials who might be able to overthrow him now see their fates intertwined with his. The public has suffered too much to be satisfied with a coup alone; they would seek the entire security system's downfall and, possibly, revenge. "We'll see this society, which has been bullied into despair, resort to desperate means," said Peter Harling of the International Crisis Group. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of people pushed to the brink. The reliance on force has produced short-term results, but at a cost, leaving Mr. Assad's base fraying as the economy implodes. Some members of the constituencies Mr. Assad counts on - Sunni Muslim business elites, the Christian minority, state employees and ambitious young urbanites - said last week in Syria that they had lost faith in the government and no longer believed its claims of victory. Reem, a government health worker who said she long supported Mr. Assad but now tends wounded protesters in a field hospital, summed up the president's options: "Kill all Syrian protesters or leave in peace to save the country," she said as her mother served coffee at their home in a Damascus suburb. Some of the government's questionable business ties also appear to be coming undone. In a currency-exchange office in downtown Damascus recently, customers anxiously haggled for dollars. The proprietor, Anas, 25, said that in early March, black market currency traders enraged at the arrests of some of their colleagues broke a "gentleman's agreement" with the state to keep informal dollar rates relatively close to official ones. That has helped drive up prices for sugar and basic goods, which rose more in recent weeks than in the previous year. An employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Damascus, Syria, and Hala Droubi from Beirut.