Is Syria Next?

Now that the government of Moammar Gaddafi in Libya appears to have fallen, Middle East watchers are wondering if Syrian President Bashar Assad will be the next dictator to fall.

The United Nations says Assad's government has killed more than 2,200 protestrs in the past five months.

Even Assad's strongest allies, Russia and Iran, have joined western nations in saying the violence has got to stop.

But Tuesday on the last day of the holy month of Ramadan, Syrian forces opened fire on anti-government protesters in several cities, killing at least seven people.

Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma told Here & Now's Robin Young that though the situation is at an impasse, he expects that to change.

"As time goes on the regime will get weaker, Syrians will get more desperate, the opposition will call for more armed resistance and there will be more pressure for outside nations to do something," he said.