The Syria battlefield is not neat:
There are jihadis in the non-ISIS (ISIL) areas, remember.
The Kurds just want to be left alone.
Remember too that much of the gray area without control colors is just unpopulated or sparsely populated.
And while Syria contracted their territory, they have not pinched out rebel-held areas within their western realm (which is not to say that rebels don't operate even in Assad-controlled areas). So moving out to relieve the outposts in the east isn't happening any time soon.
It is a war of attrition, as I've noted. Strategypage sees it that way, too:
While the Assads are losing on the battlefield and in the media they are winning on the economic front. The influx of cash from Iran and Russia has enabled the government to rebuild its reserve of hard currency to about $600 million. The Assads continue to keep the economy going in areas they control with the help of Iran and Russia. Iran supplies the foreign currency and Russia helps get it into the international banking system so the Assads can still buy foreign goods. The Assads are fighting a war of attrition. They believe the side with the best economic situation and most reliable troops still in action will prevail. As long as the Iranian cash and military assistance keeps coming, the Assads have reason to be optimistic that they will eventually be the last man standing.
Assad has the money and weapons but too few loyalists suffering too many casualties to fight a drawn-out war against the majority if rebel morale holds and they get enough weapons.
One advantage Assad has is a mobile force to attack. While both sides' forces are almost entirely strategically immobile, tied to local operations, Assad at least has some mobile regulars plus the Hezbollah gunmen and Shia foreign legion organized by Iran to act as shock troops to lead an offensive.
Assad's offensives have been focused rather than broad, indicating how few troops he has free for offensive operations.
We are finally working on the southern front that I noted months ago, as this discusses:
I’ve written in this space before that the Western efforts to consolidate, arm, and train Syrian rebels have had the greatest impact in the south of the country. There is now mounting new evidence to suggest that these efforts have modestly increased in the last few weeks, though not with the goal of defeating or even debilitating the Assad regime militarily (we can’t have that now, can we?). Rather, the idea is to apply “pressure” on Damascus during the second round of Geneva II negotiations, which began this week, and which the apparently non-pressured Syrian reconciliation minister has already classified as a “failure” waiting to happen.
An ongoing military operation, known evocatively as the Battle of Geneva Houran, has yielded a series of tactical rebel victories in the last fortnight as U.S.-financed and Saudi-purchased weapons have begun pouring across the Jordanian-Syrian border.
I find it astounding that we think we can calibrate this military support to pressure Assad rather than to defeat Assad.
The rebels will take the support we give them, but they surely aren't willing to die for a power-sharing agreement in Geneva. They want to win.
And our Gulf Arab allies want Assad to lose, so at some point objectives will part ways. But we're early, so we can all ignore the divergent goals.
But at least you can see why Assad might think he can hold on--our lack of a go-for-the-throat instinct will enable Assad, who will gas, starve, and barrel bomb civilians, to survive a war he should have lost long ago had we not been so committed to seeing Assad as a partner rather than the enemy he has been.
Hopefully, by the time we decide to screw over the southern rebels if they inconveniently stand between President Obama and a Geneva signing ceremony that keeps Assad around in some sort of power-sharing agreement, the Gulf Arab states will keep the arms and money flowing while Israel steps up beyond their logistics help.
We're paying for this support, of course:
Seeking crucial help for a key Middle Eastern ally, President Barack Obama announced late Friday that he will ask Congress to approve a new round of financial aid for Jordan, which is struggling to manage the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the civil war in Syria.
Obviously, there is more to this than financial aid, given that our Secretary of Defense met with the Jordanian king.
We have air defense and headquarters assets as well as special forces, I'm sure. Now we are training and supplying rebels. This could also be a means to defend Jordan if Assad lashes out. Or it could be a launching pad for our direct intervention of some sort.
This war can go on for years more, as I noted. It is not too late to affect the outcome. Once again, despite reports that Assad is winning, he is only winning because he contracted his realm. He is winning locally but much of the country is beyond his control and he still hasn't secured his core area in the west.
In addition to building up a southern front of reliably non-jihadi rebels who could march on Damascus if there is a regime collapse, or which might eventually be strong enough to fight its way in, we should try to build up mobile rebel brigades that could wipe out those pockets of Assad forces in the east. Lack of rebels who can be moved around the country to reinforce success, counter regime offensives, or exploit regime weaknesses is a major impediment to pushing Assad over.
The rebels are enduring the Assad offensives, post Kerry-Lavrov chemical deal, but the rebels could use some territorial gains that more clearly show rebel momentum.
Yet Assad seems unable to make good on his pledge to his exhausted supporters to use the time the Kerry-Lavrov deal provided that he'd defeat the rebels by mid-2014. Could that failure to win finally crack Alawite and other regime-backer morale?
Could Assad supporters with one foot inside Syria and another outside finally send family and wealth abroad to avoid being stuck inside when the rebels win? At some point, Assad supporters could decide that they don't want to die for a losing cause.
So who makes the big move? Will Assad try something else dramatic to try to win the war? Will the rebels, who have coped with Assad's offensive without breaking, respond in ways that further stress the regime by seizing the initiative? What will the Kurds do? Will they cut deals with Turkey and the rebels to turn on ISIS and Assad?
Heck, will we intervene? Maybe just against ISIS, in an effort to strengthen the non-jihadi rebels in the north and east? If we can help build a mobile rebel strike force to lead eastern non-jihadi rebels around the Assad outposts, that could provide morale-boosting rebel victories.
Something will change this year. Or at least somebody will make an effort to dramatically change the course of the stalemated war.
UPDATE: The Saudis are seeking to make that change:
According to Western and Arab diplomatic sources who spoke to the Journal, Riyadh intends to deliver advanced, Chinese-made shoulder-fired missiles that are capable of downing airplanes as well as Russian-manufactured 9M113 Konkur anti-tank missiles.
On the bright side, notwithstanding our bizarre intent to support rebels to fight for a stalemate-prompted negotiated settlement, the Saudis want to make good President Obama's statement that it is time for Assad to go.
The bad news is that I don't want rebels to have anti-aircraft missiles. I'd rather send mortars and rockets capable of hitting airfields and otherwise help the rebels exercise the ultimate air superiority--capturing the air bases.
