Syria approaching de facto partition amid Assad military setbacks

[TheDemSocialist]

The growing anarchy and stalemate in Syria has brought the country closer to de facto partition, as the overstretched and exhausted army of the president, Bashar al-Assad, retreats in the face of a war of attrition that has sapped its manpower.
The regime’s military has sought to retain a footprint in far-flung areas of the country, from Deir Ezzor in Syria’s eastern desert to Aleppo in the north and Deraa in the south, attempting to consolidate its hold over state institutions and protect its officer corps by retreating in the face of overwhelming offensives and subjecting lost territory to relentless and indiscriminate aerial campaigns.


But, facing a manpower shortage as tens of thousands of young men desert, the military has had to rely largely on local militias as enforcers for the regime. It is ceding territory to rebel fighters and the terror group Islamic State in favour of regrouping in its strongholds to the west, slowly paving the way for partition.
The assertive Islamism of some of the most powerful rebel groups has ensured that a military solution to the four-year conflict – which has claimed nearly a quarter of a million lives – is all but impossible in an increasingly fractious and complex battlefield.
In an unusually frank assessment in late July, Assad effectively ceded control of large tracts of the country by admitting that regime troops were overstretched and could not be present in all areas of Syria. Nevertheless, he pledged to continue waging the war.

Read more @: Syria approaching de facto partition amid Assad military setbacks

I agree with the main premise of the article. I think the only way this war is going to end is in a partition of Syria. The Syrian Arab Republic as we know it/knew it will cease to exist. I believe it will be partitioned in several areas in the north, and the west. Much of the area ISIS "controls" is simply empty desert. I disagree with how the author made it sound like Assad is drastically loosing ground after ground. I do believe the Assad government controls most of the highly populated areas. But I do agree the war is going to "end" in a partition of Syria (if it "ends").

 

[PeteEU]

We should be backing Assad not helping to destroy him. It is another massive policy failure by the US/UK/France. In no way do I support Assad and his brutal antics, but I would rather have him in power than ISIS or Al Nursa.

But as usual in the Middle East, the west fails to understand the tribal aspects and hence **** up any peaceful solution. They failed with Iraq and Libya and are going to fail in Syria.

 

[OrphanSlug]

There were a few articles a month ago to several months ago that all stipulated the same thing, that the battle lines between all the splinters in this multiple way civil war had by default carved the nation into at least 4 parts (slightly more detailed than the map given in the OP article.)

They basically say the same thing. That we have a de-facto stalemate of sorts where the balance of power has suggested al-Assad's troops lack the ability from the strain of this long term conflict to take key cities back from ISIS. At the same time we have the Kurds who more or less hold what they have without gaining all that much on ISIS. In an odd way the US airstrikes have added to the stalemate where our hits are not really aiding anyone other than perhaps preventing ISIS from advancing all that much further (and arguably you could say our hits have Iraq in mind as well making our "strategy" a bit thin in expectation ground forces for Syria can get their nation back and/or ground forces in Iraq can get their nation back.)

All sides are all tired, but no one is giving up just yet.

Our foreign policy really should have seen this coming a long way back with our own levels of involvement (granted the politics in this nation of yet another costly US war in both lives and dollars.) Moreover, our so called "allies" should be seeing this play out and realizing the ability now to jump in and ensure an outcome no matter how much of that may be to our liking or not.

It is the worst of conditions, and while I will hold the last several Presidents accountable for why we are at this point today overall in the Middle East... we also have to be exceptionally critical of Obama's team for what can only be described as a policy of long term failure to break the stalemate in both Iraq and Syria. I still contend that Obama made the worst of choices given the terrible position he was handed. Politics trumped the reality of where we were.

I've been saying for a long time now that ISIS is product of opportunity made up of people that have been there waiting for the right time. Well, they got it. They got a long term multiple way civil war in Syria that might have been a stalemate all on its own anyway, but then they also got a weak Iraqi government over an even weaker Iraqi military that practically handed our weapons right over to ISIS by losing control over key cities. I feel the most for the Kurdish people, who often end up the bastard children of many governments over there, essentially out there fighting on their own for themselves. Turkey is just now waking up to the reality of what it could mean to them if the Kurds suffer real loss of control over their territory across both Syria and Iraq.

The level of refugees is in the millions, the actual loss of life is damn near impossible to calculate, and the war with awkward at best battle lines rages on...

As much as it pains me to admit, Bush 43's actions demanded Obama stay in Iraq even longer despite that my wishes for this would have been our so called "allies" to get involved in this quite a few pages back. But since we are past that it seems the only alternative now is appeal to those allies to clean this **** up, as in 'the day before yesterday.'

Included is a print screen image of the "interactive" map of an article the BBC published roughly a month back...


Syria: Mapping the conflict - BBC News

Also, I we have articles and commentary from as far back as January saying something along these same lines...
We share responsibility for Syria's murderous stalemate. We must come together to break it | Paulo Pinheiro | Comment is free | The Guardian
Obama's Syrian Stalemate » Harvard Political Review

 

[MrT]

This video will always be relevant any time a thread about the middle east pops up.

America in the Middle East - Learning Curves Are for ******s - The Daily Show - Video Clip | Comedy Central

 

[Olive]

It is the worst of conditions, and while I will hold the last several Presidents accountable for why we are at this point today overall in the Middle East... we also have to be exceptionally critical of Obama's team for what can only be described as a policy of long term failure to break the stalemate in both Iraq and Syria. I still contend that Obama made the worst of choices given the terrible position he was handed. Politics trumped the reality of where we were.

But what should the USA and its allies do to break the stalemate? And with which partners should this be achieved? The US allies in the region have different plans for Syria. The vetting process for a pro-Western militia is taking very long with numerically very little result. Plus, they have little to say on the ground, as we could see with the arrest of several of these militiamen by al-Qaida a few days back. I try not to be too pessimistic, wars have always been temporary. But the enormous loss of life and capital will haunt Syria for generations to come, this the West cannot fix right now.

Those maps are always a bit troublesome. Even in regime held areas the government doesn't always have the final say. The SSNP (Social Nationalists) militia controls neighborhoods, Hezbollah controls parts as does the Syrian Resistance and other local groups. Even in the regime stronghold there are clashes between armed mafia-like groups.

It seems the Syrian people have reached a point where unity is no longer an option. But I believe redrawing the map will just be the beginning of a new conflict as somebody will be left unhappy.

 

[Montecresto]

We should be backing Assad not helping to destroy him. It is another massive policy failure by the US/UK/France. In no way do I support Assad and his brutal antics, but I would rather have him in power than ISIS or Al Nursa.

But as usual in the Middle East, the west fails to understand the tribal aspects and hence **** up any peaceful solution. They failed with Iraq and Libya and are going to fail in Syria.

I agree completely, Hussein, Mubarak, Gaddafi and Assad, troubled as they were, were vastly better then what we have now, did a far better job at containment of Islamic extremists and keeping the factions from destabilising things as they are now across the region. But I just have to wonder, is the US/UK/France failing, is this incompetence really, or is this disruption in the ME the objective for some reason?

 

[Montecresto]

But what should the USA and its allies do to break the stalemate? And with which partners should this be achieved? The US allies in the region have different plans for Syria. The vetting process for a pro-Western militia is taking very long with numerically very little result. Plus, they have little to say on the ground, as we could see with the arrest of several of these militiamen by al-Qaida a few days back. I try not to be too pessimistic, wars have always been temporary. But the enormous loss of life and capital will haunt Syria for generations to come, this the West cannot fix right now.

Those maps are always a bit troublesome. Even in regime held areas the government doesn't always have the final say. The SSNP (Social Nationalists) militia controls neighborhoods, Hezbollah controls parts as does the Syrian Resistance and other local groups. Even in the regime stronghold there are clashes between armed mafia-like groups.

It seems the Syrian people have reached a point where unity is no longer an option. But I believe redrawing the map will just be the beginning of a new conflict as somebody will be left unhappy.

Without Western (and some Arab) interference from the very start, Assad would have crushed the early uprising, there wouldn't be 150,000 dead civilians caught in the middle, the infrastructure would be in tact and there'd be nothing to talk about in Syria now.

 

[PeteEU]

I agree completely, Hussein, Mubarak, Gaddafi and Assad, troubled as they were, were vastly better then what we have now, did a far better job at containment of Islamic extremists and keeping the factions from destabilising things as they are now across the region. But I just have to wonder, is the US/UK/France failing, is this incompetence really, or is this disruption in the ME the objective for some reason?

Good question and one has to wonder. You should watch the tv series The Brink... pretty good and relevant to this discussion. There is especially a comment by the fictional Israeli Foreign Minister in one of the episodes that makes you think.

Now one issue could be that Assad, Saddam and Gadaffi somewhat, were all far more allied with Russia/Soviet Union than the west, and that could have been the motivation partly. That the west thought they could replace them with democracy in part of the world that dont understand the concept and where tribal relations are more important than anything else.. just shows how out of touch and stupid the west can be at times. Then again, the west has shown this arrogance and stupidity century after century during the "empire" times.. so why change our colors.

 

[Olive]

Without Western (and some Arab) interference from the very start, Assad would have crushed the early uprising, there wouldn't be 150,000 dead civilians caught in the middle, the infrastructure would be in tact and there'd be nothing to talk about in Syria now.

I very much doubt that. Syria has had a history of violent uprisings also during the rule of the Assad family. There were many mass defections in the first months of the uprising. Were they motivated by the Arab Spring elsewhere? Sure. Did it help that many governments in the world were enthuastistic about seeing Assad go? Also true. But in the beginning of the conflict I have not seen any evidence for a large-scale influx of weapons and volunteers into Syria. You can see the videos of a couple of years back, mass defections, high-ranking officers defecting, entire cities protesting. Evidence, and of that there is plenty, of foreign intervention came later than that.

The "West" did end up giving rebels TOWs, but they have not massively changed the facts on the ground.

And of course there's plenty left to talk about when it comes to Syria. Despite ISIS, Al-Qaida and the largely Islamists rebels we should not forget the corruption, lack of reforms, poor economic management and most of all daily human rights violations and opression of the Assad dynasty. The history of the Ba'ath in Syria is a very bloody one, and civilians were always caught in the middle.

 

[Olive]

Good question and one has to wonder. You should watch the tv series The Brink... pretty good and relevant to this discussion. There is especially a comment by the fictional Israeli Foreign Minister in one of the episodes that makes you think.

Now one issue could be that Assad, Saddam and Gadaffi somewhat, were all far more allied with Russia/Soviet Union than the west, and that could have been the motivation partly. That the west thought they could replace them with democracy in part of the world that dont understand the concept and where tribal relations are more important than anything else.. just shows how out of touch and stupid the west can be at times. Then again, the west has shown this arrogance and stupidity century after century during the "empire" times.. so why change our colors.

The fact that we've come to the point Assad is a preferable option speaks volume of bad foreign policy on behalf of many, many governments.

 

[OrphanSlug]

But what should the USA and its allies do to break the stalemate?

The vetting process for "pro-Western" militia has always been a problem, similar story with vetting "allies" in the region overall.

Look at the video in post #4 carefully, then go check the facts. In most ways the video is spot on in how US involvement in the mess made a bigger mess back in the 1980s. Not only did we arm and help those who fought the Russians in Afghanistan, "the Mujahideen" resistance, that in part ultimately became al-Qaeda, but we also armed and helped Saddam in dealing with the fallout from the Iranian Revolution back in 1979. Those guys specifically generational speaking, ultimately became ISIS. They were always there, employed by Saddam and eventually kicked out for a "pro-Western" government that happens to be weak and incompetent. Think about that, we are talking back in the President Carter days and accelerated greatly under the time of President Reagan as a basis for the problems we have today. We effectively helped yesterday, the two biggest problems we have today.

At the time "the Mujahideen" took the attitude of accepting our help, as our mentality was still back in the days of Communism containment. The real purpose of the Cold War from the governments of the west, "War of Containment" in handling Eastern governmental philosophies of expanding government power over the people in the region. (Ja, I know... the irony in today's context.) Also at the time Saddam took the attitude that a de facto recognition of Iraq's role in being counter to the fundamentalism that eventually overran Iran would aid in his ultimate ambitions for a stronger Iraq. And really, a stronger foothold over more oil supply. I still think being a focal point of the Arab mentality was a distant secondary to his dubious intentions to unify more of the area under his rule. This is confirmed by how he dealt with the Kurds, how he dealt with Iran from that point forward, and his ultimate invasion of Kuwait that Bush 41 took on.

So you have effectively 6 Presidents in a row (4 of whom, also in a row, dropped a bomb on Iraq for one reason or another) all because of the failed mentality of vetting "pro-Western" militia and allies to handle our desires for Middle East imperialism starting well over 30-40 years ago. Stands to reason that a fair number of people in the region look at the US not all that dissimilar from how generations long ago viewed the Crusades from the west (confirmed by various polls, including the infamous Pew Report on the subject.)

It seems now we have no choice but to abandon all this chaos and appeal to who we call "allies" today. Libertarians may have been right about this all along. Unfortunately for us that is a set of dubious characters themselves being primarily Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. Perhaps Turkey when the conditions are right for them but any real alliance is entangled by our views on the Kurds. Perhaps a few others but even less likely, as all of them we have to consider Israel. The biggest entangling alliance we have every had. I do not think we have much choice but to have a group of Middle Eastern nations go in and divide up Syria as you elude to. Who I have always contended we call a problem exclusively because of their ties to Russia today. al-Assad cannot get his nation back, neither can who we helped in Iraq. That is a clear bottom line.

Any objective review of our role in the Middle East will tell you the reality is just about all of our so called allies have their own ambitions that sooner or later run counter to our overall interests for the region, so nothing but entangling alliances that are makeshift in nature and ultimately become tomorrow's enemies. That needs to end, looking to Iran to help with Iraq in handling ISIS will end up all as tomorrow's problems.

Let the Arabs go in and divide this up enough so that we do not have a 5th President in a row that has to drop a bomb on Iraq, and a 7th President in a row to make more bad decisions that all become tomorrow's problems.

 

[Montecresto]

I very much doubt that. Syria has had a history of violent uprisings also during the rule of the Assad family. There were many mass defections in the first months of the uprising. Were they motivated by the Arab Spring elsewhere? Sure. Did it help that many governments in the world were enthuastistic about seeing Assad go? Also true. But in the beginning of the conflict I have not seen any evidence for a large-scale influx of weapons and volunteers into Syria. You can see the videos of a couple of years back, mass defections, high-ranking officers defecting, entire cities protesting. Evidence, and of that there is plenty, of foreign intervention came later than that.

The "West" did end up giving rebels TOWs, but they have not massively changed the facts on the ground.

And of course there's plenty left to talk about when it comes to Syria. Despite ISIS, Al-Qaida and the largely Islamists rebels we should not forget the corruption, lack of reforms, poor economic management and most of all daily human rights violations and opression of the Assad dynasty. The history of the Ba'ath in Syria is a very bloody one, and civilians were always caught in the middle.

President Assad was no benevolent leader, you'll find nobody making that argument. However, he was a far cry better than what we have today. And while there wasn't much overt help for the AQ/MB/al Nusra infested rebels fighting to overthrow president Assad, there was plenty of covert action. One of which was the arms the US confiscated from Gaddafi's army smuggled out of the Benghazi annex to Turkey for distribution. Perhaps you're unaware of it, but UN1973 had reluctant support from Russia and China, both of which immediately complained that its implementation was consistent with regime change in Libya, and not the protection of civilians as it had been sold. This is precisely why all three times that Obama dispatched Clinton to the UN to seek a similar resolution for the use of force in Syria, both Russia and China said hell no!!! They'd seen that play in Libya. The West should have stayed out of Iraq, Egypt, Libya and Syria, all of which are worse off.

 

[Montecresto]

The fact that we've come to the point Assad is a preferable option speaks volume of bad foreign policy on behalf of many, many governments.

It was always the point, not some late conclusion.

 

[Olive]

I don't really have much to add to this particular thread. Thanks for the comments! I have no clue where Syria will be, partition or not, it will probably go through a lot more destruction before it gets there.

 

[TheDemSocialist]

The fact that we've come to the point Assad is a preferable option speaks volume of bad foreign policy on behalf of many, many governments.

Yea... Theocratic Islamists are really great!