The longer the struggle for power in Syria drags on, the greater the danger for its minorities and, equally ominously, for those in neighboring states. This is the human dimension of the stalemated Syrian violence that is often obscured by overarching geostrategic considerations.

In world capitals, attention is focused on the political and ideological stakes pitting Iran, Syria and their influential Hezbollah ally in Lebanon against a loose coalition of Turkey, Gulf Arab petro-monarchies — notably Qatar and Saudi Arabia — Europe, the United States and, by extension, its Israeli ally.

Played out amid the turmoil unleashed last year by the Arab Spring, the stakes in the battle for Syria are momentous for the United States and for Russia, which backs Syria’s government. The outcome could accelerate — or offset — the palpable decline in American influence in much of the wider Muslim world.

But the region’s minorities increasingly risk becoming expendable collateral damage in the open-ended civil war in Syria. Many of Syria’s ruling Alawites — and their Kurd, Assyrian, Maronite Christian, Greek Catholic and Orthodox fellow minorities, indeed even the prudent Druze — feel caught in a vicious zero-sum game.