The rebels have fought in Damascus before, but this time we shall see if the rebels can sustain an effort and hold on in the face of counter-attacks. The correlation of forces, as Assad's Russian patrons might put it, has shifted to the rebels:
“Back in January we were saying that the regime could go anywhere and do anything it wanted to with its forces, and the rebels couldn’t stop them. Then, by this summer we were saying the rebels could stop them, and the regime was having great difficultly putting the offensive power together to conduct a counter-offensive operation,” says Jeffrey White, a defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Now we’re seeing that the regime is having trouble defending places that it’s been able to hold throughout the war.”
There are now reports that government troops are not able to send reinforcements to Aleppo as they prepare to defend the capital from what may be a major Free Syrian Army offensive.
Aleppo has always been a bridge too far for Assad, as far as I'm concerned. And now they will have to leave their forces in Aleppo on their own without sufficient forces to defeat the rebels there. Even if the government can muster enough forces to fight the Damascus front successfully, the decentralized and largely strategically immobile rebels forces will be able to eat away at the government's control in Aleppo and in the east, as well. If Assad can't spare troops for Aleppo, he surely can't send reinforcements to the eastern part of the country.
I don't know how long Assad has, but it is clearly the beginning of the end for his regime. The question is whether it is simple collapse or whether Assad can manage to retreat from Aleppo and Damascus to a rump Syria based on the Alawite coastal regions and whatever else Assad can hold.
Unless you think Assad can look forward to an influx of several hundred thousand troops any time soon to bolster his stretched, tired, and dwindling ground forces, he's going down.
UPDATE: Stratfor discusses the rebel gains and Assad's problems:
While events in Damascus and Rif Damascus are increasingly worrisome for the regime, al Assad's forces in the rest of Syria are also under considerable pressure from rebel advances. It is by no means certain that al Assad's forces are under imminent threat of collapse because they still hold a great deal of territory and no major city has yet been completely taken by the rebels. The retreat and consolidation of al Assad's forces also allows them to maintain shorter and less vulnerable lines of supply. However, it is clear that the regime is very much on the defensive and has been forced to gradually contract its lines toward a core that now encompasses Damascus, the Orontes River Valley and the mostly Alawite coast. With the regime's situation rapidly deteriorating, even the attempt to stage a gradual withdrawal to the core is risky.
Assad is going down. I've long thought he needed to cut his losses and withdraw to a core Syria in the west based on his Alawite base of support along the coast. But it may be too late. As suicidal as using chemical weapons would be at this point, it is possible Assad considers them his only gamble that can win this fight.
UPDATE: A tour of the battlefield:
It is largely through a massive security clampdown that Assad maintains his grip over much of the capital. But the checkpoints and clogged traffic are adding to Syrians' woes, including power cuts lasting several hours a day, shortages of heating fuel and diesel, and long lines for bread. Many city streets and squares are teeming with soldiers.
Residents say the disruption is hurting an already-struggling economy and turning daily life into an agonizing and frightening ordeal.
Disruption will seem like a walk in the park when the fighting penetrates the security clampdown in earnest.
And if Assad is truly thinking of using chemical weapons, the best way for the rebels to avoid chemical attack is to get mixed up with Assad's troops and loyal civilians.
