Martin Chulov, The Guardian: Amid the ruins of Syria, is Bashar al-Assad now finally facing the end?
As Isis surges ahead and the Syrian regime teeters on the brink of collapse, our Middle East correspondent, winner of the 2015 Orwell prize for journalism, reports on the deadly struggle for dominance in the region
One evening at the end of March, a Syrian rebel leader returned from a meeting across the border in Turkey and called an urgent gathering of his commanders. The five men turned up at their boss’s house in Idlib province expecting to receive the same pleas for patience that they had always heard and more grim news about cash and weapons being hard to find. This time, though, they were in for a shock.
“He arrived looking eager,” said one of the commanders. “That caught our attention straight away. But when he started to speak, we were all stunned.”
The leader, who asked that his unit not be identified, said he told his men that the grinding war of attrition they had fought against the Syrian government since early 2012 was about to turn in their favour.
WNU Editor: The momentum has definitely shifted in the past few months. With the entire collapse of the country and millions of refugees .... my guess is that the neighboring states (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc.) have made the decision to arm the rebel groups (with the exception of the Islamic State) and to end this once and for all. The only question that needs to be answered is what will Hezbollah/Iran do. For the moment Hezbollah's support is there .... With Syria's Army Losing Ground, A Boost From Hezbollah (NPR) .... and so is Iran's .... Iran is giving Syria more credit to keep Assad's war machine running (AP). But are they there for the long term .... I am now starting to have doubts.
More News On The Growing Military Pressures On The Assad Regime in Syria
ISIS and the New ‘Army of Conquest’ in Syria Are Headed for a Showdown -- Jamie Dettmer, Daily Beast
Analysis: ISIS Gains Momentum With Palmyra, Assad Squeezed on Multiple Fronts -- NBC
Syrian government ‘loses ground’ to Nusra Front and ISIL -- Euronews
Assad regime losses in Syria -- Middle East Online
9 comments:
Unfortunately by giving weapons to any resistance group the weapons seem to end up with isis
WNU Editor,
Three years ago, the US Defense Intelligence Agency reported that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf States had been arming, funding and training the Syrian Jihadists since before day one.
What appears to be different in this go round, is better comms, Command and Control out of a Turkish/Saudi command center, and initial artillary support out of Turkey for the assaults.
WNU Editor,
I don't think they have any real interest in going after ISIS and Al Quida in Syria, even if they can topple Assad.
The CW in Islamabad, Paris, Washington and The Kingdom is that the Jihadists can be "moderated" and "controlled".
This is where I hope to God that you are wrong Jay. But yes .... the Sunni kingdoms have a terrible history in regards to how they support and nurture these groups thinking that they can "control and co-opt them".
WNU Editor,
It's been showing up in the Ususal Suspects op-ed's in the NYT and Wapo.
They think that after they are armed, backed up with airstrikes, and topple Assad, it will just take one Freidman Moment for a secular, libertarian, neo-liberal, democratic state to arise in Syria, that whole "Calphinate" idea of the Jihadists is just cover.
A secular, libertarian, neo-liberal, democratic state to arise in Syria ... sighh .... the sad part is that many in the U.S. foreign policy establishment believed that it was possible to create such a state(s) in Iraq and Afghanistan over 10 years ago. On a side note, when I asked my uncle (who fought for the Soviet Army in Afghanistan) on what was the possibility of the U.S. creating such an ideal state in Afghanistan (this was right after the U.S. invasion) .... he gave me a look where he was wondering if I was clinically insane.
WNU Editor,
The Afghans worked on that project themselves from the late '50's ot the late 70's, with a lot of success, ( and help from both the Soviet Union and the US),
Resistance to change and reform lead to the rise of the Muj, but they were a minor irritant until Brzezinski, the Polish Prince convinced Carter to cut aid and fund and arm the Muj.
6 months and two internal coups later, the Soviet Union invaded to try to stabilize the country. 40 years later, and Afghanistan hasn't even reached the level of stability and progress as the early 50's, let alone the late '70's.
Both the neo-cons and the neo-libs are clinically insane, but that is what passes for conventional wisdom these days in the West.
Yes .... the Afghans were successful in the 50s/60s. But that was then .... the wars have completely radicalized the population into something else. For many old Afghans who knew what the country was like in the 1950s .... what they are seeing today must distress them to the extreme.
WNU Editor,
It's more that Ideas have power, but not as much power as a gun.
At the first Loya Jurga, thousands of activists showed up to try to lead Afghanistan into the future, only to have the same Warlords who broke the nation, put front and center in the process and power, because the US already had it's eyes on Iraq and was withdrawing troops.
Most of those Afghans willing to rebuild a modern secular Afghanistan at the Loya Jurga, were dead or in exile by 2003, long before the rise of the Taliban, courtesy of the Warlords.
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