It has been clear for some time that Assad didn't have enough troops to defeat the rebellion across all of Syria.
I said that Assad had to contract his realm to a core Syria in the west, rebuild his ground forces, divide the rebels, and secure his core Syria.
Then, he could consider expanding his control out to the rest of Syria.
But Assad still hasn't secured core Syria. Despite having shock troops from Hezbollah and a Shia foreign legion paid for by Iran, this force is relatively small and doesn't allow Assad to attack in many areas.
And the astounding level of casualties that Assad's forces have endured so far makes it hard to believe that Assad could even think about reconquering all of Syria--even if he can secure his core Syria.
I think it is far more likely that Assad contracts his realm further to survive than Assad will reimpose control over all of Syria.
So it is with some satisfaction that I see an article noting that Assad isn't winning the war if you think of "winning" as restoring Assad to pre-2011 control:
Still, although Assad has survived longer than many would have predicted in 2011, his chances of winning the war are slim. Neither side is strong enough to decisively win, and a "victory" would still give him only a shadow of what he had in February 2011, analysts say.
"Assad cannot win the conflict, although he can survive indefinitely," says Yezid Sayigh, a senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, Lebanon. "Regime forces are too stretched to advance on all fronts, and can only make gains in one or two areas at a time, at the risk of losing ground elsewhere.... There will be no return to the pre-2011 situation."
I strongly disagree, however, with the notion that an Assad win is the worst of three options--Assad win, continued Sunni-Shia (Alawite) fighting that might spread across the region, or fragmentation of Syria into mini-states that leads to other regional states fragmenting.
The mistake is in thinking that there aren't choices beyond those three.
It is in our interest to defeat Assad. He has been an enemy and should go. Once he is gone, we can support Syrian forces who also hate the jihadis in order to then defeat the jihadis and maintain a unified Syria.
These are at least 3 new choices. I've heard others argue that the choice is Assad victory, jihadi victory, or fragmentation of Syria that allows jihadis to run a part of Syrian territory.
Which at least shows that the 3 choices offered in this cited article are already too constrained. I'd expand the choices even more.
Why people are so simplistic in thinking that they fail to understand that foreign policy is a chain of choices and events that we continually have to make, rather than an effort to make a perfect choice that ends all problems forever by freezing the results of that decision in place, is beyond me.
Remember, when we saw Assad fully in control of Syria, we also had jihadis and other terrorist hosted by Syria--flowing from Syria into Lebanon and Iraq to murder and terrorize. So why people think the choice of Assad winning is somehow a choice against terrorism is beyond me.
Yes, Assad is winning some battles recently. In an area of the west that is too small to be considered winning Syria--and which may still be too big to win with the forces Assad has and the scale of opposition to Assad's rule. Assad may have to re-define "winning" down again.
Perhaps we could take a stab at defining "winning" for us.
