Bashar al-Assad's military machine is on the brink of logistical meltdown and collapse, because it lacks petrol and food, and is having problems resupplying its soldiers, according to a Syrian general who has defected to the opposition. ...
According to Zobi, the embattled Syrian regime can last "one or two months at most".
Interesting. Is there some confirmation? Sure, the article says. Cue the expert:
It is, of course, in the interests of the rebels to paint a picture of a crumbling regime on the brink of collapse, but it chimes with the view of General Robert Mood, the former head of the UN monitoring mission in Syria, who told Reuters on Friday: "In my opinion it is only a matter of time before a regime that is using such heavy military power and disproportional violence against the civilian population is going to fall.
"Every time there are 15 people killed in a village, 500 additional sympathisers are mobilised, roughly 100 of whom are fighters," Mood said.
But Mood suggested it may take more than a few months for Assad's regime to fall. "In the short term it may very well be possible for him to [hold on], because the military capabilities of the Syrian army are much, much stronger than those of the opposition," he said.
That claim chimes with Mood's view? How? Mood says that it will take more than a few months for Syria to collapse--not the 2 maximum that the defecting Syrian general said.
And Mood doesn't say that supply shortages will cause it.
No, Mood runs out the lazy analysis that killing just makes more insurgents.
We heard a version of that a lot in Iraq. Killing jihadis just creates more, we were told. Funny enough, killing jihadis in Iraq was actually a very good idea that didn't just create more jihadis.
And the civilian body count in Iraq that opponents of the war said would do the same thing for jihadi recruiting didn't create more jihadis.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, killing jihadis is a good thing. Fighting jihadis is not counter-productive. Ineffectively fighting them is surely counter-productive. But that's not what Mood is saying.
If you want to discuss how Assad is ineffectively using violence to defeat the rebels, be my guest. Assad surely is being ineffective and surely is creating more rebels. But that isn't an iron rule about the results of killing civilians. Assad's father killed on the same scale 30 years ago and crushed a revolt rather than creating more rebels by shooting at civilians.
The article then speaks about rebel successes in interfering with supply lines to Assad's troops. This speaks to the supply situation but cutting supply lines is way different than saying Assad is running out of supplies. Iraqi rebels cut our supply lines, too. But they never cut off our supplies. So we didn't run out.
It is true that Assad's relatively small security forces need supplies to get the mobility, armored protection, and firepower that allows them to continue fighting. If Assad is ever down to small arms for his forces, he's toast.
But I'd guess Iran would work very hard to keep Assad supplied with the means to fight. Iran does not want to lose their client state. Would Russia abandon Assad, too, rather than provide the means to keep fighting?
But this article doesn't really shed any light on what Assad's supply situation really is. Either Assad is running out of supplies, Assad's forces can't be kept supplied because of rebel interdiction, or Assad is supplying the rebels with more recruits than he can handle by attacking civilians.
