Apart from a few recent skirmishes, there seems to be little news from Syria. Despite reports that the rebels have captured parts of Aleppo and Damascus, it seems (to me) that the government is still in control.
I haven’t seen any evidence that the ruling Assad family is worried (no recent travel to Switzerland).
So is it a stalemate? Or is the government pretty much in control (and capable of mopping up the rebels)?
The FSA is now in control of a substantial portion of Damascus, and the government is doing some really weird things (like very briefly shelling Turkey, which led to minor border skirmishes). The rebels appear to be (very slowly) winning the war. The problem is there are dozens of largely uncoordinated (and sometimes antagonistic) rebel groups. So, if things get desperate enough, the government will just start offering concessions to some to help them against the rest.
Arms dealers.
No one.
Would that work?
It all depends on whether the rebels are able to catch the Emperor on his half completed space station by surprise and kill him, or whether it’s all a trick to draw out the rebels and crush them. Hopefully the rebels have a crack team of space warriors, a 2/3 trained Jedi and get some help from some local manbearthings that are cute but vicious…
I wonder what Admiral Allahu Ackbar thinks of the offer.
God is Great…but nothing beats a good blaster, IMHO.
Either nobody or the Assad government. It depends on where you set the goalpost for “winning.” The fact that the rebels have gained any territory is amazing considering what they’re up against, but, the cost so far sounds absolutely ruinous. Pyrrhic victories for the rebels.
Isn’t this a little callous?
It’s what I’d do, but I am neither a military expert nor an expert on Libya. I have a pretty solid understanding of Middle Eastern politics, and that’s about it.
No, but this is.
Undertakers.
Same as everywhere else – Charlie Sheen! Duh!
My two cents. The Assad regime is slowly loosing a war of attrition but the core Alawite supporters will probably fight till the end. The FSA rebels are becoming increasingly fragmentized and radicalised. Islamist groups are gaining influence, the USA is as usual supporting the wrong guys, and the Kurdish elements have completely split off from the rest of the rebels. There are some clashes between rebel forces and some have sided with the government forces. I doubt it was forces under the regime control that shelled Turkey. But in any case Turkey is in blatant violation with international rules and already engaged in war against Syria by arming and allowing rebel groups to stage operations from its soil.
I think the Kurds are winning. Secondly the islamists. And thirdly, Israel must be a little bit safer now that a sworn enemy is wrecked for decades to come and Hezbollah have other things to think on.
Salafists with Saudi/Qatari ground-to-air missile capability will probably not make Israel safer.
Here are the facts: Those villagers were getting shelled for weeks prior to losing 3 children and 2 women. Assad’s government apologized for the deaths. This village and other parts of Turkey have been shelled since. Since the deaths of those villagers, Turkey now responds with artillery fire.
Bullets have regularly been shot across the border. It’s pretty easily explained. The FSA sticks along the border and gets shelled and shot at there. Some of these shells and bullets miss their target and make their way into Turkey. I would doubt these shells and bullets are from the FSA because they have nothing to target in those areas, but the regime is always going to target the FSA.
So what do you get out of having this suspicion? Neither the interpretation that FSA or regime forces accidentally killed those villagers is supported by the direct evidence because we don’t have access to any. Yet the simpler explanation was that it was regime forces. All the indirect evidence supports such an interpretation. To really start moving toward your analysis, we’d have to address the question: Why would Assad’s regime apologize for the actions of the FSA?
Lastly, where did you get your evidence that Turkey is arming the FSA and expressly allowing them to stage attacks from Turkish soil? I keep reading how the rebels in Syria have no respect for the commanders and political leaders staying in Turkey.
Who would be the right ones?
Thanks for the replies-I get the feeling that Syria will turn into a nastier version of Afghanistan. The Alawites will not stand by and let themselves be slaughtered, and the Sunnis cannot dominate the whole country. So where does that leave the Christians (9% of the population)? Is the world willing to stand by while these people are driven out? Lebanon and Turkey now have thousands of refugees-who is going to resettle these people?
Wait, now – is there any serious sign that anybody in Syria actually wants to ethnic-cleanse the Christians?
Christians have been flooding out of Iraq since the invasion and if radical Islamists do take power in Syria(which is a huge, huge “if”) then yes, Christians will start flooding out of Syria.
Unfortunately most Middle Eastern countries have been hemorrhaging Christians for quite a while. Hell, there are Christian churches and towns in Israel and the occupied territories which will probably be giant open-air museums within the next thirty years if the trend keeps up.
Syria has been the one real exception to this, but it certainly could change.
That saying, it’s hardly written in stone.