I suppose Assad has a point:
President Bashar al-Assad has warned that if rebel forces battling to overthrow him take power in Syria they could destabilize the Middle East for decades.
No doubt there will be problems. Like I've often said, we don't solve problems so much as cope with the immediate one and hope the next one is solvable, too. But let's not pretend that the Assad family has been the source of stability in the Middle East.
The Assad regime's Alawite-minority government has ruled Syria for decades. In that time, Syria has destabilized, invaded, and occupied Lebanon; invaded Israel and supported Lebanon-based Hezbollah to attack Israel (see Lebanon destabilization); destabilized Jordan, intervening in Jordan's successful attempt to eject the PLO; supported Iran in its war with Iraq in the 1980s, and funneled suicide bombers into Iraq to kill Iraqis and American troops during the Iraq War; and hosted Kurdish separatists who fought the Turks while also claiming Turkish territory in the north. If I missed something about Cyprus, I apologize.
But other than Cyprus, Syria under the Assad family has pretty much destabilized all of its neighbors in the Middle East for decades.
What Assad meant to say is that if rebel forces battling to overthrow him take power, they might destabilize the Middle East for decades without trying to do so to benefit the Assad family minority-Alawite regime.
That's way different, right? Certainly for the Assads and their supporters it will be. From our point of view, I'm not sure it matters. The region simply isn't stable, to begin with. And if Assad is overthrown, a long-time enemy of ours with much blood on its hands will be overthrown and many of its leaders will be dead, jailed, or exiled abroad where they'll live in fear of becoming one of the former two categories.
Sure, we will then have the problem of defeating jihadis in Syria, but Assad hosted jihadis in Syria for many decades. The difference now is that the jihadis are no longer tame varieties that only attack who Assad permits them to attack. That's gotta sting.
Adios, and don't let the door knob hit you in the butt on the way out.
