Under the shield of the Kerry-Lavrov deal that ended the threat of American-led air strikes on Assad's forces to retaliate for Assad's use of chemical weapons, Assad's forces have made gains in asserting government control over territory in the west.
Iran and Russia have provided a lot of support. Weapons, shock troops, cash, and diplomatic support have been crucial in allowing Assad to claw back ground from the divided rebels.
Strategypage reports that Assad has 300,000 security forces on hand:
The government has over 300,000 troops and militiamen and their forces are much more disciplined and united.
These forces face 100,000 rebels.
The rebels are split into al Qaeda, jihadis too extreme for al Qaeda, non-jihadis, and Kurds who wrongly believe that they can sit out the rebellion and emerge intact if they just keep their heads down.
Read all of the post. I'm going to focus on the 300,000 security forces and Assad's chances to win the war, which are higher now than before the Kerry-Lavrov deal.
Nearly two years ago, I looked at whether Assad could possibly secure the western part of a "core Syria" extending from the Mediterranean Sea coast down to the Israeli border.
I concluded that with the 200,000 security forces Assad was reported to have, he could control the just over 10 million people in the area I defined. I excluded Aleppo, I'll add, which Assad is fighting hard to retain. So the number of people to protect/control is higher.
With 300,000 security forces, Assad had enough to add Aleppo into that area. So it isn't surprising that Assad has been able to regain control of more areas in the west.
But Assad does not have complete control, especially in the northern and southern portions of the west. The east remains out of control. And while Iran has provided Hezbollah and Shia foreign legion shock troops to spearhead the largely demoralized Syrian army troops, the army is tired. There is no rotation home for them.
And the new militias the Iranians have helped set up are not a replacement for the majority of the army--except for technical branches like artillery--that is fit for defensive duties only.
So the prospect of holding western gains, gaining more ground in the west, and trying to regain the east is a daunting task for Assad despite the successes over the last year or so.
Further, Syria's economy is a wreck and who knows how long Iran can prop it up (at the cost of a billion dollars a month)?
Syria's economy, rocked by four years of civil war, is shrinking fast as industrial and agricultural output falls, leaving almost two thirds of the population in extreme poverty, according to a U.N. sponsored report released on Wednesday.
The study, conducted by the Damascus based-Syrian Centre for Policy Research and commissioned by the United Nations, International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates of a 40 percent contraction in GDP since the start the conflict in 2011.
Granted, the state of the economy hurts the rebel side, too. And Iranian money only goes to Assad's supporters, lessening that impact somewhat. But on top of the casualties, Assad's supporters are straining under the economy, too.
And as I've said before, the one positive aspect of the Kerry-Lavrov deal is that Assad's chemical arsenal is greatly reduced, making that threat less of a deterrent to Western intervention. Assad cannot credibly threaten to fire chemical weapons at our side nor can Assad threaten to let chemical weapons loose in the chaos where jihadis can grab them.
As long as the rebellion is not crushed during the time it takes to complete the deal, we could still defeat Assad.
It looks like we will make that effort:
In a keynote speech to the West Point military academy on Wednesday, Obama vowed to increase US support for the rebels fighting Assad's regime and to help them confront their extremist rivals.
"I will work with Congress to ramp up support for those in the Syrian opposition who offer the best alternative to terrorists and a brutal dictator," said Obama.
Which is good. Assad has plenty of external support to overcome the challenges of a minority faction trying to defeat a majority-faction rebellion.
Substantial external help for the rebellion will go a long way to negating the Russian and Iranian support for Assad. And if fighting escalates even in a stalemated fashion, I just don't think that Assad's supporters can endure the casualties and economic strain longer than the rebellion.
Just as important, with our substantial help the rebels will not be defeated by the brutal methods of the Assad forces in terrorizing the opposition.
This post notes a RAND study exploring these issues and others.
Assad and his Iranian and Hezbollah backers have been saying that victory is near. It is surely nearer than a year ago. But they are stating a hope more than a reality, figuring that if they say it that the rebels will believe it.
But the Assad victories reversed severe losses endured before Iran started major support for Assad rather than reflecting the total defeat of the rebels.
The price Assad's side has paid for these limited gains has been so high that I don't see how they can endure much more to defeat a rebellion that does not lose its will to fight.
And with our external arms and training and other support, there is no reason for the rebels to give up before the government does.
We may be intervening in time to make a difference after wrongly thinking that Assad was doomed and so all we had to do was pronounce the verdict that "Assad must go" to collect a cheap victory.
UPDATE: Strategypage writes that after looking doomed, Assad now looks like he will win the war.
The inflow of jihadis who drew fighters and support from the initial secular rebels made Assad's job easier:
Despite the religious angle some Shia, even some Alawites, initially sided with the rebels despite trust issues. Before too long the Islamic radical rebel groups, who consider all non-Sunnis as the enemy, demonstrated a hostility and inflexibility that destroyed most minority support for the rebels and made these minorities even more staunchly pro-Assad. Thus the Islamic terrorist rebel groups have not only made the usual Assad followers more loyal, but they eventually (by late 2013) forced many other rebels into a growing civil war within the rebel movement.
If only we'd sent arms to these rebels earlier, we could have reduced the appeal of the jihadis who fought more effectively and siphoned off supporters.
And helping the rebels win would have ended the war and denied jihadis the opportunity to go to Syria.
Assad has the troops to fight now:
In 2011 Syrian security forces had 450,000 personnel (50,000 secret police, 300,000 troops and 100,000 police). Over half this force is now gone. Over 50,000 have been killed or badly wounded and over 150,000 have deserted and nearly 100,000 troops are in units that the government is reluctant to send into combat because of loyalty or morale issues. But since 2011 over 100,000 armed men have joined the Assads, mostly as local militia. There’s another 100,000 that are, in effect, garrisons in places like the east (near the coast), Damascus and towns and cities in central Syria that will fight defensively, but will not (or the government will not order them to) move elsewhere.
The army has suffered combat losses and desertions (mostly of Sunnis who were not allowed to rise too high in the officer or NCO ranks) that have not been replaced. Thus the Assads have fewer than 100,000 Syrian troops they can move around to fight the rebels. But these troops still have plenty of armored vehicles, artillery, constant ammo resupply (from Russia) and air support. ...
Most importantly Iran organized (and paid) thousands of Shia mercenaries to give the Syrian army some shock troops. The most important of these mercenaries were well trained and combat experienced Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon. Other mercenary units were recruited from Iraqi Shia and smaller numbers of Shia from elsewhere in the Arab world. These Shia mercenaries were fanatic and that countered the fanaticism of the Islamic terrorist rebels. Moreover, the Shia volunteers were more disciplined and better organized.
With 100,000 garrison-only troops, 100,000 militias that won't be strategically mobile, and 100,000 troops capable of being moved around backed by thousands of foreign Shia shock troops, Assad has been able to focus his efforts on the western part of the country where he has increased his force-to-area ratio enough to regain the initiative and gain ground.
Indeed, early on in the rebellion I wrote that Assad had to focus on the west and abandon the east; recruit new forces; and divide the enemy to gain some of their supporters in a Syria version of the Awakening in Iraq.
Assad managed the first two with help from Russia and Iran. Jihadis opposed to Assad managed to accomplish the third.
Yes, Assad's forces are fighting with desperation born of knowing jihadi enemies will kill them all if they win.
But the casualties the Syrian loyalists are suffering is just astounding. I don't assume they can keep enduring these casualties from such a small base of support if they don't see a light at the end of the tunnel. Endless war that promises eventual death won't look much riskier than running and taking your chances.
Remember, the north, south, and east are still under rebel control. Assad's people have a lot more war to look forward to if they are to win the war.
And while the loyalists control more ground in the west after capturing rebel-held areas, rebels can fight as insurgents (and the jihadis will fight more as terrorists) to deny full control to the loyalists. The war will go on here, too.
I don't assume Assad will win the war. Absent major Iranian and Russian help for Assad, I think the rebels would have won with minor Western aid. But Assad did get help and our minor aid was not enough to outweigh that aid. So Assad is winning at the moment.
If we finally start seriously helping non-jihadi rebels, we reduce the threat of a jihadi win if the Assads lose, making the thought of escape or surrender more appealing to Assad's supporters than endless war and heavy casualties in defense of the Assad regime.
