Change and Hope Needed

In Syria, fighting is spreading as the rebellion gains weapons and experience.

While the rebels aren't about to defeat the government's forces, the rebels are clawing their way forward. Liberated zones of cities might be openly declared soon with government options to deal with them limited. They can be isolated and starved under siege, but then that whole Responsibility to Protect issue rises again and puts pressure on the West and Syria's neighbors to actively oppose Assad's minority Alawite ruling caste.

Yet Assad has to do something to change the trends. Assad is running out of money and loyal men. Iran is hard pressed to continue their cash subsidies. Assad is printing money (printed in Russia, actually), but that can only work in the short run until inflation kicks in. And that measure undermines the wealth of his rich backers who will be more inclined to cut deals with the rebels to save their eroding wealth under a new government that would otherwise be inclined to seize all that wealth from Assad's backers.

Syria is also running out of loyal troops. Too many troops are shaky and have to be watched by loyal troops. Even this isn't preventing desertions. But it has prevented--so far--entire units from switching sides.

We might yet see proof of why our so-called "disbanding" of the Saddam army in 2003 was no mistake at all. In spring 2004, I noted that we would have been in a world of hurt if we had kept Saddam's people in place and counted on them to resist the twin Sunni (al Qaeda and Baathists) and Shia (pro-Iran Sadrists) revolts that took place then. Half of Iraq's security forces dissolved in that uprising, but that was far better than having a good portion defect and fight on the other side.

Assad is being forced to rely on loyal and paid para-militaries to fight the rebels in the absence of enough loyal trained and organized units in the army and intelligence services. But these guys are far more prone to committing atrocities.

I don't know how fast the Russian helicopters that Syria is getting will arrive in Syria. Clearly, these are a partial substitute for lack of manpower. But killing is not the same as controlling. If this is what Assad is thinking of doing, I don't think it is enough. Use helicopters to shoot up civilians and maybe somebody will enforce a no-fly zone over Syria.

Syria does need to do something to halt their eroding position. I'd suggest disarming and discharging all the Sunni Arab recruits and sending them home. These aren't functioning units and can't defend against invasion at this point. They are just potential units for the rebels.

Assad should make them sign a pledge to stay home and out of trouble--maybe discharging them into the reserves so that joining the rebels will be a harsher crime than joining as a civilian. Oh, and photograph, fingerprint, and take a blood sample of everyone to instill fear of violating their pledge.

Take the cadre remaining of Alawites and other loyal leaders who remain from the disbanded units and have them take charge of para-military units and put them under control so they don't kill civilians in such an obvious matter visible to foreigners. Then use those light infantry units for garrison duty in areas not under rebel attack and to keep roads clear.

This would free up loyal army units now guarding the suspect units to fight the rebels.

And in the end, Assad might still have to fall back to core areas of Syria and let the Sunni Arabs take over peripheral areas of Syria and hope these guys start fighting amongst themselves and maybe draw hostile Western attention for the presence of jihadis in that territory.

Assad is counting on bloodshed compelling the rebels to lose heart. He'd have been better off to kill 14,000 in a couple weeks of massacre than to spread them out in more tolerable rates over the last 15 months. Assad's position is slowly eroding and the chance of the rebels breaking is smaller than the chance of key parts of Assad's side breaking.

Assad can hope luck is with him and the rebels break anyway, or he can do something different and perhaps risky to break the trends and hope a new, more favorable trend can be created.