I don't think Bashar Assad can see his shadow

Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Thursday, February 2, 2012 - 1:46 PM Share

The AP breathlessly reports that Punxatawney Phil saw his shadow today, which means another six weeks of winter.  Based on recent data, I'm wondering if Syria's Bashar al-Assad can say the same thing. 

Earlier this week the U.S. intelligence heads testified on Syria, and offered some surprising assessments:

Syrian President Bashar al Assad will not be able to maintain his grip on power in the wake of a wave of opposition that has dragged on for almost a year, America’s top intelligence officials told Congress today.

“I personally believe it’s a question of time before Assad falls,” James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, told the Senate Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  CIA Director David Petraeus added, “I generally subscribe to that as well.”

Clapper said “it could be a long time” before the Assad regime falls because of “the protraction of these demonstrations” and a Syrian opposition that remains fragmented.  Despite that, Clapper said “I do not see how long he can sustain his rule of Syria.”

Hey, remember how, a year ago, Clapper got into trouble for being honest about the state of affairs in Libya despite his honesty being a political inconvenience?  This is precisely why I find his testimony so credible. 

Recent facts on the ground buttress Clapper's assessment -- as does the Financial Times' David Gardner's reportage, which is chock-full of interesting facts about the Assad regime's constrained ability to repress:

The [Assad] regime believed it could crush the uprising, which began in mid-March after revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, by the end of April and then in the summer Ramadan Offensive. It failed.

These operations revealed its reliance on two dependable units -- the 4th Armoured Division and the Republican Guard, made up of Alawites, the heterodox Shia minority that forms the backbone of the regime, and commanded by Mr Assad’s volatile younger brother, Maher. Whenever the Assads deployed units with a rank-and-file reflecting Syria’s 70 per cent Sunni majority -- as they had to if their offensives were to cover more than the hot spots of the moment -- defections ensued.

Even more interesting is Gardner's take on the evolving Russian position:

Russian diplomats…despite their rhetoric, have been talking to Syrian opposition figures and, according to the latter, carefully considering the Arab League proposals. As a veteran U.S. diplomat puts it, “there is a squishiness to where they [the Russians] are now”.

Russia does have a commercial interest in Syria, and arms the regime but the value of this depends on whether it will get paid, by a government running out of cash. It is only six years since Moscow had to write off more than $10bn in unpaid Syrian debts from the Soviet era.

Its real interest is in retaining its base facilities at the port of Tartus, its last naval asset in the Mediterranean. For that it will eventually need to reach an understanding with Syria’s future, not hold on to its past. Tartus is a long-term strategic asset. The Assads are no longer a long-term proposition.

This is new and interesting information, and does appear to track multiple reports that the negotiations in Turtle Bay will lead to an actual Security Council resolution on Syria. If Russia cuts a deal with the opposition and removes its veto from multilateral action, how long can Assad hold out? 

What do you think? Will Assad be out of power in Syria inside of six weeks or not?

Developing…

EXPLORE:AREA STUDIES, FLASH POINTS, ARAB SPRING, INTELLIGENCE, MIDDLE EAST, RUSSIA, SYRIA, UNITED STATES
 

DANIELSERWER

1:12 AM ET

February 3, 2012

Wishing won't make it so

While the army defections are encouraging, there is no real sign of the regime cracking: few (if any) high-level military or police defections, no ambassadors going over to the opposition, and no businessmen bailing. The signals from the Russians aremixed, but they on the whole seem primarily concerned about making it clear in the Security Council resolution that Bashar does not have to step down (and no international military intervention is authorized). Latest reports suggest a neutered resolution that will fail to initiate a serious transition process.

I'd bet Mitt's $10k that Bashar will still be in power March 15, unless a serious Security Council resolution passes. Even that won't guarantee anything, but it would start the ball rolling.

Daniel Serwer
www.peacefare.net

 

BRETT

4:21 AM ET

February 3, 2012

That could be rough. If Assad

That could be rough. If Assad flees and the regime collapses, you could see a mass migration of Alawites (I remember reading a news article saying that Israel was preparing for that type of instability on its border with Syria).

 

GRANT

4:56 AM ET

February 3, 2012

I understand that the

I understand that the implication of the article that the offer was made tongue in cheek. However the killings of Alawites and other groups that supported Assad (if he really does fall) could easily happen.

 

UMESHGEETA

6:17 AM ET

February 3, 2012

When will the regime fall?

You ask "Will Assad be out of power in Syria inside of six weeks or not?".

No, it will take more than that. Problem is how many lives will go before that. I believe Assad will like to keep the 'burn rate' low so that World Attention does no come to him and would prefer non-sense like Egyptian Soccer Riots (FP had a solid column by an Egyptian writer).

Will Assad go in the end or not? Depends on how Arab Springs delivers, in some sense. My bet - he will. Chances are high in next six months. If he survives those months, chances of he going away start to fade.

 

KUNINO

5:23 PM ET

February 3, 2012

What Clapper said, carefully

In Syria as in everywhere else, an opposition that remains divided is something like a mob, and gets closer to that every time some guy in military camos is pushed forward as having walked out of a national army to side with protestors. Mr Clapper suggested delicately that this is what we're seeing in Syria.

He also said something of much greater significance that everybody seems either to ignore or else dance around and misrepresent. He said that America, by repeatedly threatening that advanced nation Iran, is driving it crazy. This was the 2012 Clapper major embarrassment. Strange how nobody cares to look at it. The first of the Condoleezza Rice Wars, still in the making? How long would the US put up with some damn foreigner saying he or she would take nothing off the table in trying to bend America to its will?

 

JACOB BLUES

7:15 PM ET

February 3, 2012

Dan, the comments on Assad's military support is telling

to a degree. What would be interesting to know, is the strength of these two units in size and force.

In addition, the variable of how much support Assad is receiving directly from Iran and tangentally from Hizballah next door.

I think the other question to raise would be if the conflict in Syria does turn into a civil war, does it spread to Lebanon Given Hizballah's current support for the Syrian regime?

 

THEDSP

11:08 AM ET

February 11, 2012

Tracing the Weapons of Bashar al-Assad

On Thursday, a blogger who writes on Twitter as ArabSpringFF posted an image of what was said to be an unexploded shell used in the Syrian military assault on parts of the city of Homs that have slipped from government control but the aeon guide is the best.C.J. Chivers, a Times correspondent and the author of “The Gun,” a social history of the AK-47, tried to answer that question in a post on his personal Tumblr blog, which has been adapted for use here with his permission.

If the photographs and witness accounts out of Syria in recent days are authentic, then forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been firing 107-millimeter ground-to-ground rockets into populated areas. One of the duds said to have been fired is pictured at the top of this post. Its warhead is clearly visible, though its fuse appears to be missing.

 

Daniel W. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

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