Local truces aside, the ingredients for a long Syrian war are all still in place

[Jefferson23]

World View: Assad cannot deliver a knock-out blow, the rebels can't unite, Moscow will not back down and the West lacks a strategy



The political winds in the Middle East are changing but they still bring crisis and war. The two most important developments so far this year are the failure of the Geneva II peace talks and Saudi Arabia's replacement of its intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, as director of Syrian policy, with a member of the royal family notably close to the US and hostile to al-Qa'ida.

The reasons for the failure at Geneva are obvious enough and so are the consequences of that failure. The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, made it clear from the beginning that Washington wants peace negotiations to be primarily about "transition" and the end of the government of President Bashar al-Assad. But, since Assad's army controls most population centres and main roads in Syria, this radical change in the balance of power will not happen until the rebels stop losing and start winning on the battlefield.

Given that the rebels are at present divided, lacking popular support and on the retreat, it may take years of warfare before they and their Western and regional backers can dictate surrender terms to the other side. It could happen more quickly only if the Assad government and the Syrian army were shorn of support from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, something that, so far, is not happening. If anything, the struggle for the Ukraine between the West and Moscow is likely to make the Russians even more determined not to see their status as a great power eroded by defeat in Syria.

I spent two weeks in Damascus and Homs at the end of January and the beginning of February and came away with the impression that the government is in a stronger position, politically and militarily, than at any time since the tide in the fighting began to turn in its favour in about November 2012.

in full: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/local-truces-aside-the-ingredients-for-a-long-syrian-war-are-all-still-in-place-9146750.html