The casualty numbers show every sign of racking up at a higher rate:
The battles between rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters and government security forces are growing larger. In the south, a recent clash saw hundreds of armed men on each side fighting it out. The FSA forces also had some tanks and artillery. But for the most part, the FSA concentrates on cutting off supplies for troops and police battalions. The convoys carrying these supplies are vulnerable to ambush, and as the FSA makes more of these attacks, more soldiers and police decide to desert or switch sides. Army and police commanders must devote more and more of their time to monitoring the loyalty of subordinates. The supply problems also consume a lot more attention, as hungry troops, who are short of ammo, are a big problem.
The last two weeks have apparently seen a thousand more dead.
Keep in mind that at no time during the Iraq War--except in the initial major combat operations portion of the war--did our enemies use tanks and artillery (I don't count the man-portable mortars and small rockets the terrorists and insurgents used). And enemy concentrations in greater than platoon strength (30-50 men) was rare. The ability of the FSA to fight in small battalion size with heavy weapons is fairly amazing.
For the FSA, fighting Assad's regular forces won't have the effect of defeating them but of letting the shaky draftees in Assad's army know that deserting or defecting is a safer option than they may have thought.
Assad still has the Alawite core of his army and security apparatus to rely on, but if enough regular forces defect with enough officers and equipment, a civil war with actual pitched battles could develop.
If that happens, the Turks will intervene. I suspect it would only be to carve out safe zones in the north for the anti-Assad forces and logistics support for the rebels. But if Assad used any of his chemical weapons arsenal in desperation, I'd guess that Turkey would go all in and drive on Damascus.
Oh, and Turkish media reports that Assad is arming up some of his chemical warheads:
According to a report published by the Sabah daily Sunday, Damascus armed 600 one-ton chemical warheads to use in the event of a foreign military intervention. Furthermore, President Bashar al-Assad ordered the deployment of 21 missile launchers along its border with Turkey. Syria’s medium-range missiles that can be equipped with chemical warheads have a range of up to 1,300 kilometers and would include the southern and central provinces of Turkey.
Russia has also supplied 3 million gas masks. I'd read reports on this earlier but didn't consider it proof of anything. Assad could have worried about chemical use against his forces. Or for purposes of bluffing seriousness of purpose.
But 21 missiles isn't much. You need to blanket an area with chemicals to build sufficient density to be lethal. Chemical weapons on long-range missiles are really just a terror weapon. If fired at the Turks, Assad better hope that the Turks are terrified because otherwise the terror will be visited on Damascus when the Turkish army arrives.
There's also the possibility that Assad is so worried about having enough loyal troops to fight the Sunni majority that he might follow Saddam's example with his own Kurds and use chemical weapons on Sunni centers of resistance within Syria.
This has a way to go for true ugly status.
UPDATE: Stratfor goes over the range of options for foreign intervention. I'd have liked to hear their view on the option of carving out humanitarian enclaves to give the Syrian opposition effective base areas. There would be a lot less logistics involved in a shallow penetration of the border rather than a drive on Damascus.
