There is no "mission accomplished" banner, but Assad sees light at the end of the tunnel:
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told his troops on Wednesday they were close to winning the country's seven-year civil war after inflicting a succession of defeats on rebels.
Early last year, government forces held just 17 percent of national territory but a series of blistering offensives has since forced the rebels out of many of their strongholds, putting Assad's government in control of nearly two-thirds of the country.
But trends can change. When the rebellion began it looked so bad for Assad that President Obama felt confident in jumping to the head of the parade to tell Assad he should step down--without doing anything substantial to push Assad out. Assad looked doomed--if the rebels were backed adequately.
But the chemical weapons deal in 2013 checked that momentum and kept Assad going.
Even after that and despite the fragmentation of the rebels, rise of jihadis (encouraged by Assad to make him seem like a good alternative), and failure of America to adequately build up non-jihadi rebels, by early 2015 it again looked like Assad was losing ground and hope.
But Russian-Iranian intervention in the latter half of 2015 reversed that losing trend; while the American-led war on ISIL in Syria finally cracked that potent opposition to Assad. Assad again gained the edge.
The biggest pockets of territory not controlled by Assad are not threats to him.
Turkey won't let the Idlib rebels--if those rebels had offensive capabilities--threaten Assad at the price of losing their buffer zone. Whether Assad even lets Turkey keep their buffer is the more likely question.
And the Kurds in the northeast and east have no interest in moving beyond their region to threaten Assad. The question is how long will it be before Syria's government turns on them.
The civil war isn't over as long as those regions are outside of Assad's control.
And the end of the rebel control of territory in the rest of Syria doesn't rule out insurgency and terrorism in those regions now occupied by pro-Assad forces. The role of Iran and Hezbollah might encourage that resistance to foreign occupiers. Or could Iran find the financial cost of holding their gains in Syria too much to continue that support?
In addition, the victory wrecked Syria with massive death tolls, displacement, and economic damage. The only victory is Assad's survival. Will Assad's supporters be eager to back him when the alternative of jihadi victory is gone?
Can Assad reassert central control over even his western territories?
And then you have the possibility of Syria as a battleground for an Israeli-Iranian war.
The trends are good for Assad right now. But trends, as they have in the past during this war, could change again. Will they?
All I know for sure is that I'm so happy America didn't "further militarize" the conflict in Syria back in early 2012 about half a million deaths ago. Whew!
[Pre-publication addition: Strategypage on Syria and Iran, including Idlib. And things about Turkey.]
