by Prof. Eyal Zisser
The war will apparently endure for quite a while, but if Syrian President Bashar Assad continues to enjoy unlimited support from Russia and Iran, and Washington continues to exhibit weakness and indifference, Assad stands a good chance of emerging victorious.
Aleppo's future remains
bleak despite the end of the fighting
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Photo credit: AFP  |
To Syrian President Bashar Assad and his
allies from Moscow and Tehran, the fall of Aleppo, the second-largest
city in Syria, is an important achievement in the war the Syrian
president is waging against his enemies. With that, Assad's road to
ending the war victoriously is still long and arduous.
After all, the Russian and Iranian
intervention in the fighting across the country, which began in
September 2015, assured the continued survival of his regime, repelling
and perhaps removing the danger of his fall downfall to rebels or an
external force. And yet, the embers of the uprising in Syria still burn,
threatening to burst in flames anew, particularly if the
Russian-Iranian steamroller ever stops applying pressure.
Since its onset in 2011, the Syrian civil war
has known ups and downs, and dramatic turns. At times it appeared
Assad's defeat was inevitable, his downfall a matter of mere days, or at
most weeks; and other times it appeared he was on the verge of dealing
his enemies a decisive blow.
Looking back we can say with confidence,
however, that until the Russians and Iranians arrived on the scene in
September 2015 to fight Assad's war on Syrian soil, the war was trending
in one general direction -- in favor of the rebels fighting him.
The rebels were able to capture large swathes
of territory across the country -- village after village and town after
town -- and even unify their ranks. On the other side, the Assad regime
was bleeding profusely and losing strength, ultimately leaving Assad
without the reserves to keep him in the fight.
The Russian-Iranian intervention on the
battlefield shifted the momentum in the otherwise one-sided war. The
"Chechnya model" fighting strategy, which the Russians implemented
fastidiously and unhindered, eroded morale among the rebels. Russian
forces systematically pummeled rebel areas with airstrikes and artillery
barrages, with the intent of deterring and forcing the civilian
population in those areas, suspected of supporting the rebels, to flee.
The aforementioned strategy also enabled the
regime and its allies -- Iranian forces, Shiite militias and Hezbollah
-- to seize the initiative from the rebels and take control of a number
of strategic areas and key positions in the country's north, center and
south.
In any case, the rebellion has not been
subdued and the insurgents are still operating across the country,
continuing to nip at the heels of the Syrian regime while striking back
painfully. They have maintained a presence in the areas around the
capital Damascus, in the south and center, around the cities of Hama and
Homs.
The entire northern Idlib province is still
under rebel control, along with considerable portions of the country's
east. All these areas will be the focus of the regime's efforts to win
and end the war once and for all.
Any attempt to analyze the war in Syria, or
predict how the situation will unfold, must take two fundamental yet
contradictory facts into account: One, by refusing to collapse, the Assad
regime has exhibited surprising strength and fortitude. The country's
institutions continue to function and represent a nucleus for recovery,
perhaps even resurrection. At the same time, the Syrian regime is
exhausted and lacks the power to re-impose its sovereignty without
Russian and Iranian assistance.
Second, the rebel camp is dependent on support
from significant parts of the Syrian population, and all the efforts
put forth by the regime and its allies have thus far ended in failure.
With that, the rebel camp has been unable to forge unity among its
ranks, and cultivate any type of military or diplomatic leadership that
will help it win the campaign. Furthermore, the rebel camp is growing
more dependent than ever on foreign aid, which may not continue to come.
From this point, two conclusions can be
reached: One, after six years of bloodletting, neither side has the
ability to win and end the war on their own. Second, the war is no
longer a matter for Syrians to resolve among themselves. The active
intervention of foreign forces in the armed fighting will prolong and
possibly decide the war's outcome.
The little that remains
This reality raises questions, but also
possible answers about how the war could end and about the country's
future. One possibility, "the Spanish scenario," involves the survival
of the Syrian regime and ending the war with the upper hand, or at the
very least in sound control of the country's heart, the swathe of
territory stretching from Damascus northward to Aleppo along the
Mediterranean coast. It is from this region that Assad will seek to push
forward and recapture the remaining parts of Syria. The rebel camp will
be relegated to the fringes and eventually disintegrate, until it
ceases to exist as a significant force capable of threatening the
regime's existence.
In the second possibility, "the Afghan
scenario," the fighting in Syria will persist at varying degrees of
intensity, and will continue to ravage whatever good still remains
there. Assad will tenuously continue to hold, under Russian and Iranian
patronage, the heart of Syria, where most of the population resides.
Tin the third possibility, "the Libyan
scenario," Syria's state systems will collapse under the weight of the
unceasing bloodletting, and due to the regime's exhaustion. Various
rebel groups will seize control of numerous areas. This scenario seems
unrealistic in light of Iranian-Russian involvement on behalf of the
Assad regime.
However, a dramatic shift in American policy
under President-elect Donald Trump, which would diverge from
declarations he has already made on the matter, or in turn Assad's
unnatural demise, could fundamentally alter the picture in Syria.
To summarize, after six years of brutal
fighting, very little of Syria is left for Assad and his adversaries to
fight over. Most of the country is destroyed, around half a million of
its people have been killed and another eight million, a third of the
population, have fled across its borders.
The war will apparently endure for quite a
while, but if Assad continues to enjoy unlimited support from Russia and
Iran, and Washington continues to exhibit weakness and indifference,
Assad stands a good chance of emerging victorious.
All that remains to be seen is whether Assad will be
able, within a matter of years, to re-establish control over the entire
country and restore it to the glory days, prior to the war's outbreak in
the spring of 2011.
Prof. Eyal Zisser
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=38823
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