In the aftermath of the re-taking of the Syrian town of Kobane from DAESH by Kurdish fighters, the editors of Bloomberg have lurched uncontrollably onto the point I made more than a year ago, that the least intolerable outcome in Syria comes in a package that includes Assad:
…lthe U.S.’s conflicted Syria policy has become stuck. The current plan to begin vetting, training and arming the moderate Syrian opposition this spring is unlikely to unstick it. The only way out of this appalling stalemate is to come to terms with Assad — without letting him back in control of Sunni Syria.
What is happening in Syria and, more broadly, the Middle East has been called “the Great Sorting Out,” in which the region is re-dividing into homogenous Sunni and Shia territories, with minorities squeezed out or eradicated. It happened across Europe at the end of World War II, and it almost happened in Yugoslavia after the collapse of Communism. This can be a long and bloody process.
“Re-dividing” is a benign sort of way of referring to bloody ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, with millions of dead or refugees. There is no clean, sanitary partition of Syria to be had. Anything that would be done would need to be done town by town and even block by block or family by family. We are not suited for that process, should not want to be suited for it, and should keep our noses out of it. Leave that up to the Syrians or the erstwhile Syrians.
At the end there will still be Assad and/or his regime and we should accustom ourselves to that reality. Après moi, le déluge.
Who do they think is going to be in charge of Sunni Syria? It ain’t gonna be the “good rebel”? It is good that everybody has arrived at the conclusion that the “good rebels” cannot win and that Assad will remain in power.
Unfortunately, the ground shifted. ISIS became the “bad rebels” that could get things done, and the “good rebels” are worthless. The new conclusion is that ISIS will run Sunni Syria, but there will be some ex-Bathists connection.
Personally, I think Syria is Humpty Dumpty and can’t be put back together again. I suppose it’s theoretically possible if the US and Russia got behind Assad, but our policy is still regime change and it seems to me the days of US support to dictators for realist reasons are long gone.