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2015-04-02 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

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Posted by phil_b 2015-04-02 14:30|| || Front Page|| [16 views ] Top
File under: Govt of Syria

#1 Pro-Sunni Arab wishful thinking or analysis? Idlib has been the center of see-saw battles between the regime and the rebels for years. Rebels have taken it over, lost it and now taken it over again. Who knows what the next roll of the dice brings?

Posted by Zhang Fei 2015-04-02 15:07|| 2015-04-02 15:07|| Front Page Top

#2 The thing about Idlib is that it's 10-15 miles from the Turkish border, and the rebels' supplies and foreign recruits. That the area isn't securely in rebel hands speaks either to Assad's relative strength, or the rebels' relative weakness.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2015-04-02 15:31|| 2015-04-02 15:31|| Front Page Top

#3 Why would Hizbullah speak out against Assad? Assad was the senior partner in the alliance. Hizbullah was his marionette. Hizbullah presumably fantasizes about becoming the senior partner. The problem here is that Syria has traditionally viewed Lebanon as a lost province, which was in part why Assad pere invaded. If Sunni Arabs win against Assad, Lebanon will once again be under threat, and Hizbullah doubly so.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2015-04-02 15:39|| 2015-04-02 15:39|| Front Page Top

#4 If the map is correct, and I have no reason to think it isn't, the rebels are around 20 to 30 km from Latakia, the presumed Allawite last bastion, on a fairly broad front.

That Assad can't keep the rebels at bay from the Allawite's heartland, supports the article's contention that he is no longer in charge, and Iran and Hezbollah are focused on securing the Damascus area and contiguous territory to Hezbollah controlled territory in Lebanon.

I'd add that the rebels have no need to take the cities, except for propaganda purposes. My read is that the significance of Idlib, is not that the rebels took it, but the Assad regime gave up trying to retain it.

Posted by phil_b 2015-04-02 15:57|| 2015-04-02 15:57|| Front Page Top

#5 phil_b, various rebel factions and coalitions have been near Latakia for most of the civil war. At one point, it looked like they were going to cut off Damascus from the Alawi heartland on the coast, with substantial if not monolithic positions in Homs, Hama, and Qusayr as well as in Idlib. In the last two years, they've been driven back or out of most of those positions.

The Islamic State mess relieved a lot of the pressure on the regime, wrecked those rebel factions which aren't al-Nusra or ISIS or the Kurds, and generally made a mess of things. The regime is really weak in the east, and not particularly strong south of Damascus, but those aren't strategically urgent sectors, whereas the spine of the country, from Damascus to Latakia and to a lesser extent, Aleppo, is vital to regime survival, and they've got effective control of that right now.

Posted by Mitch H. 2015-04-02 16:16|| 2015-04-02 16:16|| Front Page Top

#6 If the map is correct, and I have no reason to think it isn't, the rebels are around 20 to 30 km from Latakia, the presumed Allawite last bastion, on a fairly broad front.

That Assad can't keep the rebels at bay from the Allawite's heartland, supports the article's contention that he is no longer in charge, and Iran and Hezbollah are focused on securing the Damascus area and contiguous territory to Hezbollah controlled territory in Lebanon.

Idlib cannot be held securely by the regime, any more than Guam could be, by the US against Imperial Japan, for the reasons described previously. Its see-saw status speaks to rebel weakness, given that it is a mostly Sunni Arab area and close to supplies from Turkey. Latakia, the traditional homeland of the Alawites, is ~30 miles to the Turkish border, but has never been remotely close to being overrun by the rebels. This, too is a sign of rebel weakness. Why don't the rebels hold a 100-mile belt of positions along the Turkish border, given the proximity to Turkish training facilities and supplies? What will happen to the rebel position in Idlib when it stops raining, and Assad can resume airstrikes?

Posted by Zhang Fei 2015-04-02 16:28|| 2015-04-02 16:28|| Front Page Top

#7 The regime is really weak in the east

Given that the east looks like it's mostly barren desert, it's probably not that big a deal. The only important things located there are the border crossings with Iraq. Since ISIS began running wild there, the border crossings have vanished, anyway.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2015-04-02 16:35|| 2015-04-02 16:35|| Front Page Top

#8 Mitch, I agree the road from Damascus to the coast is key.

But let's say you are sitting in Tehran and discussing how to retain control of the Damascus region and resupply. Thru Hezbollah controlled Lebanon will look a shorter and more secure route.

Losing territory in the north doesn't look that much of a problem.

One other point not brought out by the Economist article is that for a state to fight a war they need the economic resources of the state and for Assad's Syria these are pretty much all gone. He is reliant on money and resources from Iran.

And in war, as in most things, whoever pays the piper calls the tune.

Posted by phil_b 2015-04-02 16:47|| 2015-04-02 16:47|| Front Page Top

#9 One other point not brought out by the Economist article is that for a state to fight a war they need the economic resources of the state and for Assad's Syria these are pretty much all gone. He is reliant on money and resources from Iran.

And in war, as in most things, whoever pays the piper calls the tune.

That's true for both sides. Could the rebels stay in business without Gulf Arab funding? The difference between Iraq and Syria is 5000 dead GI's and $1T worth of American intervention. Given that Assad is outnumbered 7 to 1 whereas Maliki outnumbered the Sunnis 3 to 1, Assad's continued survival without Uncle Sam as his guardian angel is testament to impressive political and military skills.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2015-04-02 17:15|| 2015-04-02 17:15|| Front Page Top

#10 That's not even counting open Turkish support for the rebels.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2015-04-02 17:16|| 2015-04-02 17:16|| Front Page Top

#11 test

Posted by Besoeker 2015-04-02 17:22|| 2015-04-02 17:22|| Front Page Top

#12 One other snippet I caught this week is that Assad relies on allied tribes and militias to guard the roads.

The advance of ISIS is causing some of these militias to return to defend their home villages. No mention whether not getting paid was a factor, but it wouldn't surprise if it was.

And as I said the roads are key.

Posted by phil_b 2015-04-02 17:28|| 2015-04-02 17:28|| Front Page Top

#13 The advance of ISIS is causing some of these militias to return to defend their home villages. No mention whether not getting paid was a factor, but it wouldn't surprise if it was.

They need money for food, water and gas. If they're not getting paid, they can't physically stay. The tendency for the media, which hires a lot of Sunni Arab stringers and relies on Sunni Arab media outlets, is to generate or repeat pro-Sunni Arab propaganda. We can't truly know how Assad is doing until the rebels are completely wiped out or Assad's head rests on the pointy end of a pike.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2015-04-02 17:48|| 2015-04-02 17:48|| Front Page Top

#14 To underline the difficulties facing Assad, he has to ward off a population of 16m Sunni Arabs, whereas Uncle Sam suppressed Iraq's population of 6.6m Sunni Arabs after the expenditure of 5K dead GI's and $1T, with Shiite and Kurd auxiliaries holding the fort. Whatever the issue with Assad, it's not incompetence that's holding him back. The (unspoken) math is implicitly why everyone's been expecting Assad to have caved in by now. Because it would be surprising if Iran has sunk even 1/10 of $1T into Syria, although it's certainly possible that it has lost 5K men.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2015-04-02 22:14|| 2015-04-02 22:14|| Front Page Top

#15 Don't forget RUSSIA.

Moscow needs as many allies as it can get in the rear andor on the flanks of the Hard Boyz.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2015-04-02 22:31|| 2015-04-02 22:31|| Front Page Top

#16 Not to mention a naval base in the Med at Tartus. That business in the Crim wasn't just posturing.

Posted by SteveS 2015-04-02 23:18|| 2015-04-02 23:18|| Front Page Top

23:52 JosephMendiola
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