Is The Endgame Nowhere In Sight In Syria?

The Endgame In Syria Is Nowhere In Sight -- Kenneth Bandler, FOX News

Wither Syria? Some observers interpreted UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi’s visit to Damascus and certain Russian statements as proof positive that the Syrian conflict will be resolved soon. It will not. Predicting that the endgame for Syria is imminent, it turns out, is wishful thinking.

The year 2013 promises to be as traumatic for the Syrian people as was 2012, when President Bashar al-Assad showed no hesitation in using whatever was available in his arsenal, including Scud missiles and cluster bombs, against the Syrian people.

Indeed, a new UN report confirms that what has transpired in Syria since the first crackdown in March 2011 is actually worse than we thought. "The number of casualties is much higher than we expected, and is truly shocking,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. More than 60,000 people were killed, about 25 percent more than the previously reported death figures. And since these include only those casualties that were officially registered, the actual number is likely higher.

Read more ....

My Comment: I disagree .... the end game is in sight .... but only after another year of war and an additional 100,000+ killed. The only thing that will change this prediction is if the Assad regime starts to use WMDs, or foreign powers intervene. As to what will happen to Syria after the regime has fallen .... that's another story.

The Best Commentary That I Have Read On The U.S. Role In The Syrian Civil War

Syria’s Chaos Isn’t America’s Fault -- Aaron David Miller, Washington Post

Who lost Syria? Comments of some U.S. senators, analysts and journalists, including the editorial board of this newspaper, suggest there is no doubt: Bashar al-Assad and his thugocracy are primarily responsible for the killings, but the tragedy of Syria is also a direct result of a terrible failure of leadership on the part of the international community, and of the United States in particular.

Syria, it is charged, is Barack Obama’s Rwanda.

Don’t believe it.

The idea that Syria was anyone’s to win or lose, or that the United States could significantly shape the outcome there, is typical of the arrogant paternalism and flawed analysis that have gotten this country into heaps of trouble in the Middle East over the years.

Read more ....

My Comment: I concur .... the Syrian civil war was started by Syrians .... caused by an intransigent government and a Sunni population who decided to say 'enough is enough'. And while we all do want to help the Syrian people .... as we have learned in Iraq and in Afghanistan .... our involvement will not help stabilize a tribal/religious/sectarian conflict that has been ongoing for decades if not longer .... and where the international consensus on this conflict is completely absent and/or disorganized. The best that we can do is to provide humanitarian assistance and to support our allies in the region .... and to watch very closely on what happens to all of those WMDs when the conflict is finally over and Assad is out of power.

Is The Syrian Rebellion Now In Its Deathwatch Phase?

The Deathwatch Phase -- Strategy Page

December 21, 2012: The Syrian rebellion is now in its deathwatch phase. The government is doomed and its forces grow weaker every day. It’s only a matter of time before the government losses control of the entire country and surviving officials flee for sanctuary. Allies (Iran, Russia, China) have been quietly offering refuge to Assad and his senior aides. President Basher Assad keeps making public announcements that he has no intention of leaving. The same can’t be said about the several thousand senior officials he depends on to control the country. Many of these people have committed known criminal acts over the decades and have to fear rebel retribution if they are still in Syria when the rebels win. Many of these officials have already sent their families into exile and when these army and government leaders join their families in large numbers, you’ll know it’s the end. That is expected to happen within the next few months or weeks.

Read more ....

My Comment: I concur with this analysis .... with the exception that I think that the fighting will last to the end of 2013 .... and if Assad and his military use chemical weapons .... even longer than that. But the dye has already been cast .... the Syrian military may have the weapons, but they are losing men .... and they have only so many men left in this war of attrition. As far as the rebels are concern .... if they lose 2 men (if not more) for every Syrian soldier killed .... they are winning .... and as time makes the rebel soldiers more formidable and experienced fighters .... that ratio will probably become 1:1.

The Endgame For Syrian President Assad

SYRIA EXPERT: Assad Will Eventually Flee To The Coast And Rebels Will Battle Each Other -- Michael Kelley, Business Insider

Syria expert Joshua Landis told Voice of America journalist Cecily Hilleary that he thinks Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will eventually flee to the coastal mountains of his ancestral Alawite homeland.

Landis, whose wife is Alawite, said Assad will allow Damascus to be destroyed before relinquishing it to rebels. When he does "the Syrian Army, which has now largely been turned into an Alawite militia, will be forced back into the coastal mountains."

Assad and his troops will be able to survive there, according to Landis, if Iran and Russia continue to provide support in the form of weapons and money while the Sunni Arabs that make up the opposition fail to unify.

Read more ....

My Comment: I call this the Lebanon scenario .... a country that is divided along sectarian lines. For Syria it will be Alawites on the Mediterranean coast, Kurds in the north, Sunnis in much of Syria, and other groups (Christians, Druze, etc.) scattered everywhere.

Commentaries, Opinions, And Editorials On Syria's Civil War

Obama's Syria Disaster -- John Hannah, Shadow Government/Foreign Policy

Watching the nightmare in Syria unfold, you have to ask yourself: Could the Obama administration have made a worse hash out of the situation if it had tried?

Short of an outright Iranian victory that saw the Assad regime's power fully restored, it's hard to imagine a more dire set of circumstances for U.S. interests. The Syrian state is well on its way to imploding. A multiplicity of increasingly well-armed militias are rushing to fill the vacuum. At the forefront of the fight are a growing number of radical Islamist groups, including some affiliated with al Qaeda. The prospect that Assad' s demise will be accompanied by the use (and/or proliferation) of chemical weapons and massive communal bloodletting gets higher by the day. Libya on steroids is what we're looking at, only this time not on the distant periphery of the Middle East but in its heartland, a gaping strategic wound that is likely to threaten the stability and wellbeing of Syria's five neighbors -- critical American partners all -- for years to come.

Read more ....

More Commentaries, Opinions, And Editorials On Syria

Obama Dangerously Blurs His Syria 'Red Lines' -- Evan Moore, US News and World Report
Middle East Exploding, and Obama Nowhere to Be Found -- Elise Cooper, American Thinker
For Obama, it’s not too late on Syria -- Michael Young, The Daily Star
Rally 'Round the Jihadist. The Obama administration slapped a terrorist designation on Syrian rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra -- but only managed to spark an anti-U.S. backlash among anti-Assad groups. -- Aaron Y. Zelin, Foreign Policy
Syrian Opposition Boosted by U.S. Recognition, But Faces Growing Challenges -- Vivienne Walt, Time
How the US can prevent the use and spread of Syria's chemical weapons -- Daryl G. Kimball and Paul F. Walker, Christian Science Monitor
Don't wait for Syria to cross the 'red line' -- George A. Lopez, Special to CNN
Leading From Behind Qatar. Deferring to those who arm Islamists in Libya and Syria. -- Wall Street Journal
How to avoid revenge killings in post-Assad Syria -- Christian Science Monitor editorial
Opinion: Letter from Syria -- Thomas Friedman, Mercury News
Syria: How War Is Tearing Apart Families -- Tim Marshall, SKY News
As Syrian Rebels Receive Endorsement, Will They Also Get Military Assistance? -- PBS Newshour
What’s Next for Syria’s Christians? -- Mark Movsesian, First Things
The Land of Topless Minarets and Headless Little Girls. A requiem for Syria. -- Amal Hanano, Foreign Policy
The Difference Between Iran and Syria for President Obama -- Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic
What Should U.S. Policy Be in Syria? -- Council On Foreign Relations
How the U.S. Can Save Syria -- Daily Beast

Syria's Bloodbath Is About To Get Worse

After Assad, The Real Bloodbath Could Begin -- Paul McGeough, Sydney Morning Herald

Western nations may have little say on what unfolds in Syria.

As haunting images and reports of diplomatic frustration crowd accounts of the horror of life in Syria, memories of blood-curdling conflicts from the too-recent past, in which Moscow and Washington were key players, have been a brake on international calls to see off the diminished dictator of Damascus, Bashar al-Assad.

Despite reducing his country to a charnel house, can the Syrian President hang on, in what is now a regional proxy war? Or, despite impressive military gains in the past few weeks, can Assad's opponents topple him without full-throated international support - military, humanitarian and financial?

Read more ....

My Comment: As the death toll and violence continues, the bitterness and need for revenge escalates. It is now going to take generations before the bitterness of this conflict can go away.

Syria Is Worse Than Libya

If You Thought Benghazi Was Bad, Watch Syria -- Robert B. Baer, Time

The cat’s out of the bag. During Libya‘s rebellion, the White House OK’ed the arming of rebels fighting the Gaddafi regime to Arab partners in the Gulf, and rumors have abounded ever since over the identity of some of the recipients of weapons sent by U.S. allies. Now, a story in the Wednesday’s New York Times claims to have confirmed rumors that some of the arms supplied by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates ended up in the hands of Libyan Salafi groups. There’s no evidence these arms were actually used in the attack on the Benghazi consulate on Sept. 11, but the Times report will fuel speculation. It may also help explain why the Obama Administration has been dancing around the Benghazi incident as if were a grenade with the pin pulled.

Read more ....

My Comment: Leading from behind has some drawbacks .... arming groups with weapons that may be turned on us at a future date is certainly one of them.

Two Must Read Commentaries On The Syrian Civil War

The Men Are Vanishing Here -- Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times

It was cold and drizzling as yet another family made homeless by war arrived in this town in northern Syria to start a new life in a tent.

Khadija al-Ali seemed to be trying not to cry as she explained how in the space of a week she had gone from middle-class housewife to homeless single mother.

Ms. Ali had lived a comfortable life in the northern city of Aleppo with her husband, a tailor, and their three children, ages 6, 3 and 1. Then, a week ago, a Syrian government jet dropped a bomb that destroyed the family house, but no one was home and the family members thanked God that they were safe.

A couple of days later, Ms. Ali’s husband disappeared in Aleppo. Maybe he was arrested at a checkpoint, or hit by a bomb, or targeted by the snipers now common in the city. One Aleppo resident told me about a friend who had been shot by a sniper in the shoulder and leg. It was too dangerous to pull him to safety, and he died on the street two days later.

Read more ....

Among The Syrian Rebels, Heartbreak And Blood -- Jeffrey Goldberg, Chicago Tribune

Saturday night on the border between Jordan and Syria: Col. Nawaf Tahrawi, a commander of the Royal Jordanian Border Guard, climbed to the top of a three-story concrete watchtower, built next to a scrub-filled streambed.

In the cold dark of a cramped concrete room, Tahrawi asked a soldier operating a sophisticated thermal camera system if he had seen any movement in his sector. Just packs of dogs, he said, but he added that activity would no doubt pick up soon.

Read more ....

Is Syria Like Iraq In 2004?

From A Distance, Syria 'Feels' Like Iraq In 2004 -- Dan Murphy, Christian Science Monitor

There's some hope for a faster end to the fighting – with British Prime Minister Cameron hinting at safe passage for Assad if he decides to quit the fight. But the outlook is grim.

Mass casualty suicide car bombs. Kidnappings and executions of noncombatants for having the wrong political views. Religious antagonism. An expanding circle of death beyond leaders and fighters to their loved ones. Violence that can descend almost anywhere in an instant, one part traditional combat, two parts terror tactics and civilian ambushes carried out by a patchwork of militias with murky allegiances and ideologies.

That paragraph well describes Iraq at the start of 2004. The real post-Saddam bloodletting was just getting underway, and while death squads and suicide bombings were spreading dread from Basra in the south to Mosul in the north, almost no one had a full handle on what was happening, or the horrors that were to come. I certainly didn't see what was coming, or at least didn't want to believe what I was seeing on the ground.

Read more ....

My Comment: I remember my friends who were serving in Iraq (British and American) telling me on how shocked they were at the level of sectarian hatred and violence that was starting to break out (2004-2005) They were completely outgunned .... with the only virtue being that both groups were focused on each other and not on the allied forces. But it was only when the Al-Askari Mosque was bombed in 2006 that all hell broke loose which only burned out after many killings and the U.S. military surge. Is the same happening in Syria .... from my vantage point, it is much worse .... and there is no U.S. or foreign military presence to split apart the combatants.

Will Islamic Extremists Conquer Syria?

 

Syria Policy Risks Trading A Tyrant For Extremists -- Marco Rubio, Special To CNN

(CNN) -- For almost two years, the Syrian people have tried to free themselves of Bashar al-Assad's cruel iron fist. They have looked repeatedly to America for help. But the Obama administration has failed to robustly support the Syrian rebel movement. Instead, the administration hid behind an unsuccessful United Nations peace process. As the conflict in Syria continued, enabling al-Assad and his forces to murder thousands of civilians, Iran and Hezbollah made matters worse by sending soldiers and weapons into Syria to prop up al-Assad. And now, jihadists are entering the country each day.

Read more ....

My Comment: US Senator Marco Rubio is right .... our words at the beginning of this year did raise Syrian rebel hopes that the U.S. may become involved in their civil war in the same manner as we were in Libya's .... but our failure to act has dashed these hopes and .... unfortunately .... replaced them with the Syrian rebel movement going elsewhere for support. What we (maybe) should have done is shut-up .... but even then I sincerely doubt that the U.S. could have played a different role than what we are playing right now. The Middle East is in terrible shape, and it is now being wrecked by extremism, authoritarianism, sectarianism, and tribalism. It will take years before this all burns itself out .... and our direct involvement could produce a situation that would make both the Iraq and Afghan wars puny in comparison. A prospect that I am sure that no one in the U.S. wants.

Update: More signs that the Syrian rebels are now going there own way.

A Critical Analysis Of American Policy Towards Syria From David Ignatius

Brook Silva-Braga sits down with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who recently spent two days traveling in Syria.

A War Chest For Syria’s Rebels -- David Ignatius, Washington Post

Left on its current course, America’s sensibly cautious policy toward Syria is unfortunately going to come to an unhappy end: The jihadist wing of the opposition will just get stronger and gain more power to shape Syria’s future.

But what’s the right alternative? How can the United States help the Syrian opposition while avoiding another costly military intervention in the Muslim world?

I’ve been puzzling over this dilemma since traveling into Syria two weeks ago with the Free Syrian Army. “Be careful” still seems like the right watchword for U.S. policy in an unstable, revolutionary situation where order could collapse like a Levantine version of “pick-up sticks.” But caution doesn’t mean inaction, and some modest changes in U.S. policy could make a big difference in outcome.

Read more ....

My Comment: An interesting view and analysis from David Ignatius on Syria.

Will Syria Rise Again?

Syria Will Rise Again -- Radwan Ziadeh, Foreign Policy

On my first trip to my homeland in 5 years, I saw a lot of tragedy -- and a lot of hope.

Exactly five years after I was exiled from Syria, I was able to return to my homeland because of the Syrian revolution.

I left Syria in September 2007 after being directly threatened by Syria's General Intelligence Administration (Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Amma). The agency, which has branches in every Syrian province and is responsible for monitoring dissidents, tapping phone lines, and censoring media, objected to my involvement with the Damascus Declaration in 2005. The agency not only issued an arrest warrant for me, but banned my entire family from traveling outside Syria. The travel ban weighed most heavily on my sister and her five children. My sister's husband lives in Saudi Arabia, and due to the ban, her children have been unable to see their father for four years -- solely because their mother is related to a human rights activist and political opposition figure.

Read more ....

My Comment: I am sure that Syria will "rise again" .... but not in the shape that Radwan Ziadeh would probably like to see. I have always been of the opinion that the Syrian civil war still has another year(+) to go, and that the real bloodshed is going to happen next year. I am using the Lebanese civil war as my reference point, a conflict that cost 120,000 lives ( 1,000,000 injured) in a population that is just a fraction of what is Syria's today. And like Lebanon .... my prediction is that when the Syrian conflict is finally over .... the country will be fractured along sectarian lines and tainted with a bitterness that is going to last for generations. In short .... from my vantage point there are no good endings for this conflict save one .... the eventual defeat of the Assad regime.

The Syrian Civil War Grinds On (A Commentary)

Viewpoint: Echoes Of Spanish Civil War In Syria -- Fouad Ajami, BBC

Although Syria's revolutionaries took inspiration from their counterparts in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, their situation is unique in the Arab world, argues Fouad Ajami. He sees vivid parallels, though, with the Spanish civil war.

Pity the Syrian people. They had been given to believe that fighter jets in the arsenal of the state - those Russian-made MIGs they once viewed with pride - were there for the stand-off with Israel.

Now they know better. The runs over Aleppo, the bombings of Idlib, have laid bare the truth. It is no accident that the founder of this regime, Hafez al-Assad, emerged from the ranks of the air force, which is not often an incubator of coup-makers. There would come a day, the masters of this minority regime doubtless knew, when fighter jets would be used at home.

Read more ....

My Comment: Fouad Ajami nails it in this commentary. This is my must read for tonight.

An Arms Race In Syria's Civil War Will Probably Trigger Regional Conflicts

More Weapons In Syria Could Trigger 'All-Out War' -- NBC

SANLIURFA, Turkey – Monday was another day of cross-border violence and rising tension between Syria and Turkey.

It was also a day when Gov. Mitt Romney pledged that, if elected president, he’d change the course of events here.

Among other things, he wants to green-light heavy weapons to the Syrian rebels “who share our values” in order to “defeat the tanks, helicopters and fighter jets” of the Bashar Assad regime.

For its part, the Obama administration says it has refrained from supplying the rebels with weapons out of concern that they could end up in terrorist hands.

Read more ....

My Comment: Everyone is on the same page when it comes to the dangers of Syria's civil war escalating .... Panetta and, UN Secretary Ban being two of the latest to express these concerns. But .... wars have a tendency to grow on their own, and the Turkish president is right when he says that the "worst case" is now unfolding in Syria.