I've been saying it all year that I don't believe Assad' reclaiming of the initiative in western Syria means he is turning the tide of war. Around Homs in the region between the Alawite core near the coast and Damascus, Assad made some gains by giving up outer regions of Syria and using new militias (and a Shia Foreign Legion organized by Iran) in a smaller theater.
But Assad did not break the rebels and even in crucial Damascus the rebels continue to make gains:
The media is focused on the battle for Homs, and consequently the Syrian government appears strong with current momentum moving in its favor. The government’s imminent victory at Homs is indeed significant for efforts to consolidate its primary line of communication from the coastal region through Homs to Damascus; however, reports of government strength are misleading as indicators of the overall campaign for Syria. Such reports overlook critical opposition victories across other fronts. The Syrian government has had to consolidate resources and reinforcements in Homs province, and have diverted attention from important opposition activities, particularly in Damascus. At a time when the opposition is reeling from the loss of Homs and struggling to counter the impacts of greater Hezbollah and Iranian support, it has nonetheless made significant gains in Damascus, proving that the Syrian government lacks the capacity to conclusively defeat its insurgency.
If Assad can't hold Damascus, the whole point of his campaign in pointless and he might as well abandon the capital and points south to focus on a core Alawite mini-state that his small base of support can defend against the majority of Sunnis who might conclude they've suffered enough already and be content with the capital and the rest of Syria outside the coastal and inland belt.
As I've also noted, another explanation for Assad's use of chemical weapons is that our taboos about using chemical weapons are uniquely Western and not part of Assad's thinking at all.
Another is that after repeated (apparently) crossings of our Red Line without an American response, Assad could reasonably interpret that he had a Green Light to use the weapon.
Assad isn't winning his war. We shouldn't act on the assumption that he is and that it is too late for us to defeat Assad.
UPDATE: Two things I meant to add.
One, I do not believe Assad's air power has been a decisive edge for Assad. Yes, it helps. But using our military power to erase Assad's ground attack capability would not eliminate a decisive edge for Assad. As long as Assad has artillery, he can slaughter Syrians. Halting Iranian transport flights into Syria would be far more effective if we want to think of air assets. Providing anti-tank weapons, mines, and light artillery (mortars, rockets, recoilless rifles) would be even more effective.
Two, in defense of my complaint that too many people are saying (as I've said all along) that while it might have been a good idea to support the rebels a couple years ago, it is too late now, I'd like to point to Al Qaeda in Iraq. They were crushed as a fighting force by the end of 2011 when we left. Without our continuing help and fueled by chaos in Syria, al Qaeda in Iraq is doing a good job of not looking like a receding tide of war at all.
Of course, I wanted to make sure we pounded al Qaeda into elimination because of the previous example of a rebel force being resurrected from near dead--our intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 that raised up the smashed but still fighting Northern Alliance to destroy the Taliban regime in Kabul.
