More than 13 years after Bashar al-Assad’s security forces opened fire on protesters demanding democratic reforms, the Syrian president’s grip on power may finally be weakening.
The 59-year-old son and heir apparent of late dictator Hafez al-Assad has faced several setbacks during the long civil war that began due to his brutal crackdown in March 2011, but has so far managed to hold on to power.
Now, with his Lebanese ally Hezbollah battling an Israeli attack and his great power backer Russia distracted by its invasion of Ukraine, Assad is finding himself short on friends on the battlefield.
Major cities in the north, including Aleppo and Hama, have fallen to opposition fighters within days.
And on Saturday rebels said they were now besieging the capital where Assad has ruled since the death of his father in 2000.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has welcomed the rebel advance; Israel is strengthening its forces in the occupied Golan; And Syria’s southern neighbor Jordan is organizing the evacuation of its citizens.
In a further sign of Assad’s isolation, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) group, which controls much of northeastern Syria, said it was ready to talk to its enemies among Turkey-backed rebels.
But international observers have repeatedly predicted the downfall of the isolated former ophthalmologist since the early months of the rebellion, and they have been repeatedly proven wrong.
Protests against Assad’s regime began in 2011 when a teenager was arrested for writing anti-government graffiti in the southern city of Daraa.
amazing progress
Now, for Assad’s regime, “the writing is on the wall”, Joshua Landis of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma told AFP. “Things are changing very quickly.”
The rebels’ advance has been astonishing.
Clashes broke out between rebels and government forces near the main city of Homs on Saturday, following the successive capture of Aleppo and Hama.
Its capture would effectively cut Assad’s capital off from his support base among the Alawite minority community in the coastal highlands.
“The Alawite minority has lost confidence in Assad,” Landis said. “There are serious questions about whether the Syrian army has any fight left.”
But it is important to take some precautions. After all, haven’t world leaders underestimated Assad before?
In early November 2011, Türkiye’s Erdogan urged Assad to hold free elections and warned that his “office is only temporary”.
In October 2012, during a re-election campaign debate, US President Barack Obama also warned Assad that his “days were numbered”.
The following month, Nabil Elaraby, then head of the Arab League, declared, “Everyone knows that the regime in Syria will not last long”.
The Syrian strongman rejected them all, even as international lawyers issued arrest warrants for war crimes and rights groups condemned Syria’s use of chemical weapons and aerial bombardment of civilian areas.
As the civil war turned into overlapping regional conflicts — government versus rebels, Turkey versus Kurdish fighters, U.S.-backed militias against jihadists from the Islamic State group — Assad maintained his hold.
At first he was ostracized by many fellow Arab leaders, relying on Iranian and Russian support, but as it became clear he was not leaving the stage, diplomatic relations quietly resumed.
rebel victory
And meanwhile, Russia and Iran supported Assad. Lebanon’s pro-Iranian Hezbollah sent thousands of fighters with the support of Iranian advisers to reinforce Syrian government forces. Russia carried out air strikes.
But the pace of rebel victories this week makes it appear that without its powerful foreign friends, Assad’s Syrian army is a hollow shell.
Russia has so little trust in its ally that its embassy acknowledged a “difficult military and political situation.”
Hezbollah lost thousands of fighters and weapons and its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah in clashes with Israel before a recent ceasefire.
It appears to be in no position to help, with a Hezbollah source saying on Saturday that it had sent 2,000 fighters to Syria’s Qusayr region “to protect its positions.”
“The Assad government is in its most precarious position since the summer of 2012,” Nick Heras, an analyst at the New Lines Institute, told AFP.
“There is a real risk that the Assad government could lose power in Damascus, either through fighting or through a negotiated retreat.
“Ultimately, the Assad government’s ability to survive will depend on the extent to which Iran and Russia view Assad as useful to their strategies in the region.”
Heras said Russia, which has a naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus, would be reluctant to withdraw its military personnel and assets from the country, and Iran would also be reluctant to abandon Assad.
“If one or both of those allies decide they can advance their interests without Assad, their days in power may be numbered,” Heras said.
The winners will be Assad’s main regional rivals: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkey’s Erdogan, both of whom faced intense domestic criticism for emerging victorious in the war.
Turkish-backed rebels are now leading the opposition advance on Homs, and Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah and Iranian targets in Syria have effectively neutralized Assad’s most powerful supporters.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
