If it's not civil war, what is it?

If what is going on now in Syira is not  “total chaos” and “civil war”, then what is chaos and civil war? Wide spaces the state has no control of? Violence, assassinations, explosions moving from one area to another… large scale abductions which have reached  tourist quarters, and on a sectarian basis… inhabitants displaced and compulsory evictions of villages and neighbourhoods… Abductees and prisoner swaps taking place with local and regional mediation, where here, and only here, they recognise one another. It is a long term war, with a mass transfer of population, new maps of Syria with all its components after the state has entered the stage of erosion in its prestige, legitimacy, effectiveness, and institutions… It is a war that is open for all  forms of regional and international interference, which is actually taking place on the ground, not just expected as many may think… This is the current situation. It is a war that affects Lebanon every day and every hour… The state in Lebanon as well is experiencing erosion in its prestige and its sovereignty over its soil, institutions, and independence of its judiciary… It is the Syrian crisis. The confrontations, splits, detentions, burning, wounding and killing… It is the Syrian crisis that has reawakened in the Lebanese,  images of their own civil war and its horrible nightmares… This is the image now without any modification. Iran is a big player in Syria and Lebanon, and doesn't hide its gameplan  of protecting the Syrian regime and the “deprived community” in Lebanon, the Shiite Lebanese… Saudi Arabia is a big player here and there too, and it declares its enmity of the Syrian regime and its insistence on protecting the “deprived community” in Lebanon, in a reference to the Sunni Lebanese in particular, as stated in the message by King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia to the Lebanese President Michel Suleima ...Turkey is a main player, in Syria at least, so it was the first country selected to mediate for the release of the Shiite Lebanese pilgrims abducted by the Free Syrian Army or some other armed Syrian group. What happened in Aleppo shows the decline in the prestige of the Syrian state and its authority over its land. How can we explain the kidnapping of a convoy of pilgrims in an area very close to the second largest city in Syria and its commercial and industrial capital?… What happened in Tripoli and Akkar in Lebanon shows the decline of the prestige of the Lebanese state and its authority on its land. How can we explain the security, judicial, and political concessions made by the “state” at the cost of its judicial independence, and the pride of its army, in front of angry and resentful  people, whose anger is being fuelled by a “powerful machine” of sectarian incitement,  creating incidents of disobedience and threatening to rebel and announce the establishment of a Free Lebanese Army? Manifestations of victory have invaded Syria, as they held in their grip a group of prisoners and abductees… Manifestations of joy swept the Salafi communities in Lebanon. We watch on TV the affirmaton  that this current is coming with no doubt, and that it will sweep everything on its path. It is now out of control, even the control of its allies and sponsors and its civil spokespersons, who are many. This is the third player that the Secretary General of the UN has much talked about in the last days… A player which is well known, and the entities that support it are known too… It is a player that does not recognise any limits or red lines or boundaries… Homs for him is the same as Tripoli.