by Boaz Bismuth
In the "mother of all battles" currently underway over the Syrian city of Aleppo, there is far more at stake for loyalists of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad than there is for the rebels. Should the rebels win control over Aleppo, not only will they gain control over the second-largest city in the country, but also over a large stretch of territory that reaches all the way to the Turkish border. A rebel-controlled Aleppo could very well be a repeat of the scenario in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, though Assad would likely prefer to forgo executed leader Moammar Gadhafi's final scenes.
It took a relatively long time for Aleppo to become involved in the Syrian violence, which began in March 2011. The inhabitants of this bourgeois city – Christian neighborhoods loyal to Assad in the west and Kurds in the north (20 percent of the population) – are more concerned with their own fates than with that of the country. It is not so much a love for the current regime as it is a fear of the day after that has made it difficult for the city to pick a side.
The mysterious bombing at the national security building in Damascus on July 18, in which four of Assad's most senior defense officials were killed, has succeeded in spreading fear among Assad loyalists. For the first time, those Syrians still loyal to Assad realized that his regime could actually fall.
The struggle over Aleppo is forcing the population, much of which is still on the fence, to pick a side. It is always best to join the winning side, and therefore the Aleppo battle carries a lot of significance, both militarily and in terms of morale, for both sides.
The international community will probably continue to sit idly by for a long time. The horrible massacres in Syria haven't really changed a thing – the rebels have already understood that Assad will fall, if he falls, from within.
But the Arab Spring uprisings have proven that a leader has no chance of survival without the support of the army. The military's support is the only thing that is keeping Assad in power, though 24 of his general have already defected, according to Turkish sources. Among the defectors is Gen. Manaf Tlass, an obvious candidate to lead an interim government if and when Assad is toppled.
Assad has not yet fallen – his wife is beside him, and more importantly, his army is heavily armed. But the Russian airline Aeroflot suspended its flights to Syria last week, and Russia has urged its nationals to leave Syria. Have the Russians realized that Assad's regime is coming to an end, or have they understood that the Syrian president will soon pull out all the stops and decimate the rebels?
One thing is certain: The Syrian uprising is the harshest and ugliest uprising yet.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2312
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