by Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Syria's situation is bleak, no matter which way the tide of war turns. And it won't stop there.
Written for Arutz Sheva, translated from the Hebrew by Rochel Sylvetsky
The situation in Syria is deteriorating. To the east, the city of Tadmur has fallen into the hands of Islamic State, giving that organization control over nearly half the country, including the areas bordering on Iraq and Jordan. Assad's regime has lost the border crossings to Iraq, while the military airfields in the desert -Tadmur and T4 - have fallen to ISIS. Hundreds who lived in the city and helped the regime have been slaughtered by Jihadist knives and their bodies flung onto the streets. The world is concerned that Tadmur's antiquities, priceless relics of ancient cultures, will suffer the same fate at the hands of ISIS as did the ancient artifacts of Iraq.
Currently,
there are several combat zones focused on the western part of the
country, the area where most Syrians live and where most of the
agriculture and industry are located. Battles rage between the regime
and a coalition of rebel forces, most of them Islamists attempting to
overthrow Assad. The main centers are the Qalamoun mountains and the
Idlib region. Fierce fighting is taking place in both areas and over the
past few weeks, the regime and its ally, Hezbollah, have been losing
ground as well as more and more fighters and equipment.
The
terrible situation in which the Syrians have found themselves has sown
panic among the Alawites, who know full well that the connection
between their heads and their bodies has a good chance of being severed
if the Jihadists prevail. This, naturally, causes them to look for
someone to blame and their natural choice is Bashar Assad. Many Alawites
accuse Assad of destroying the country and creating the situation in
which they - that is, close to two million people - are now in mortal
danger. They know how the majority of Syrians view them after forty five
years of the Assad family's regime and its extreme cruelty, cruelty
which was especially evident when dealing with Sunni opponents.
Alawites
are fleeing enclaves and neighborhoods located in Shiite cities -
Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama - for the regions they came from in
northwest Syria, but the rebels are getting closer and threatening to
annihilate them. Suspicions run rife, with Alawites accusing one another
of collaborating with the enemy, or attempting to flee the country in
order to save themselves. In the city of Qardaha, the Assad family's home town, a fight broke out several days ago, in which two of the ruler's cousins were killed.
The
deterioration of the Syrian army is causing it to lose all restraint
and it is beginning to act as if there are no rules of warfare. There
have been an increasing number of incidents in which civilians were
blown up by explosives including chlorine gas and where scud missiles
were launched at towns taken over by the rebels without taking into
account the possibility of innocent civilian casualties.
Bashar
Assad has lost faith in his Alawite security forces and the only guards
who surround him day and night are Iranians of the Quds force, an
elite unit of the Revolutionary Guards sent by Iran in order to aid the
weakened ruler.
During
the last few weeks, there have been reports citing the possible places
where Assad can seek refuge - Russia, Iran and Switzerland have been
named. Russia and Iran are listed due to their being friends, while
Switzerland, it is surmised, is listed due to the Assad family's secret
bank accounts in that country. The billions stolen by the ruling family
from the Syrian people over decades will be enough to ensure a life of
opulence and maximum security for centuries.
Assad has been
reiterating that if his regime falls, those who will suffer most from
the aftershocks are the countries that helped to topple him - Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, Israel, America and NATO - who will not be able to
escape the black scourge of rising Jihadist and extremist Islamism as,
encouraged by Assad's fall, it continues to butcher and destroy.
Thousands of volunteers will stream into Syria from all over the world
to take part in the looting, pillaging and expansion of Islamic State
that will move on to take over Turkey, Iraq and all the other countries
created by colonialist European powers.
There remains the possibility that Russia will take control of Latakia and its surrounding area - "temporarily," of course - to permit its naval craft to dock in the last port Russia has on the Mediterranean. If this scenario becomes a reality, it may spread to other ports, namely Baniyas and Tartus.
Assad's
regime is fast becoming a thing of the past. Jihadist, destructive
anarchy that can easily turn into another Afghanistan, will take the
place of the state of Syria, spawning organizations bent on
International Jihad whose extremist Islamist message will
spread throughout Europe, America and the rest of the world.
All that's missing is a nuclear powered
Iran to complete the utter chaos that will be the new Middle East.
Oddly, there are those who think that the world can live with these
developments and are willing to reach an agreement with Iran that allows
it to achieve that nuclear power.
Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/16989#.VWcjFUazd-8
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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