Dire prediction

“The Syrian government is about to fall,” began an email from a trusted source and long-standing observer of events in the Middle East. He contends Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, four years into a catastrophic civil war, has run out of fighters.

It’s not hard to imagine—with more than 220,000 casualties and nearly half the country’s 22 million residents displaced—that Syria’s army itself would be nearing utter exhaustion.

Add to that mass defections a year ago when 73 Syrian military officers, including seven generals and 20 colonels, left their posts and crossed the border to Turkey with their families. Another group of 33, reportedly including six senior officers, also defected, taking up residence in a Turkish refugee camp. That’s notable: Of all the neighbors taking in refugees from Islamic State fighting, Turkey alone operates completely closed refugee camps. No journalists, no nongovernmental aid groups, and no monitors are allowed in, even as the camps ostensibly are run by the UN. What’s to stop them from becoming training camps for anti-Assad and terrorist campaigns?

The Obama administration, and most Americans, have decided it’s OK to let the open warfare in the Middle East run, to lead from behind regional powers that themselves appear intent on operating as jihadi states. It’s OK to allow key diplomatic opportunities to slip. Obama negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran, Syria’s chief backer, without making it contingent on a negotiated peace in Syria. His administration has failed to bother pressuring Turkey, a member of NATO, while it provides aid and comfort to jihadist forces.

There are no ‘good’ rebel fighters left. The only way a coup or other regime change works is by ceding territory to jihadist terrorist groups.

As long as we’re forecasting, here’s what’s quite possibly in store: A military coup topples Assad, organized by ex-military officers who sympathize with rebel jihadi groups, backed by Saudi money with Turkish cooperation. Their common cause, besides actual support for radical ideology, is to bulwark Sunni power bases and capture territory against Shiite Iran and its newfound U.S. support.

Then look for the United States to insist the Syrian army be dismantled as “a condition” for legitimacy, focusing world attention on a new favored strong man while hoping no one notices the Islamic radical takeover running beneath him.

The United States continues to mouth support for rebels against Assad, but there are no “good” rebel fighters left. The only way a coup or other regime change works is by ceding territory to jihadist terrorists groups.

Contrary to headlines and White House assertions, ISIS or ISIL or Islamic State and affiliates are making gains in Syria, while proving very difficult to eject from Iraq.

Operating under various extremist banners, the so-called rebels launched in April what Stratfor called “one of the largest and most ambitious operations of the Syrian civil war.” With 12,000 mostly foreign fighters—Chechens, Moroccans, Brits, and others—more than 40 jihadist groups are fighting to cut a supply line that runs between Latakia and Aleppo in Idlib Province. The groups include al-Qaeda under the al-Nusra Front banner, Ahrar al-Sham, and the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army.

The fighters in Syria show no qualms about ISIS-style tactics: In Idlib City al-Nusra fighters publicly executed two Christians for running a grocery store that sold liquor. They abducted a priest and members of the Antiochian Orthodox Church. Fighters routed Christians from the city (most of them already displaced from elsewhere) with threats to kill them if they didn’t convert to Islam or pay the Islamic tax.

As thousands fled toward Latakia, the Christians also took shrapnel and artillery hits from government forces. One father named Rami described an all-night escape with his 9-year-old daughter through Idlib City’s sewage tunnels to avoid snipers.

Fighting this month remains desperate and with more deadly focus on the port city of Latakia and the inland commercial hub of Aleppo. Latakia is the Alawite heartland and bastion for Assad and his father before him. It also is now home to many thousands of displaced Christians. Aleppo is in a heartland of Christianity so old many churches there can trace their first leaders to Pentecost.

As analyst Elizabeth Kendal noted, “That the Arabs and Turks are willing to sacrifice many thousands of Alawite and Christian lives is unsurprising. That the West is willing to do so, is beyond comprehension.”

Email mbelz@wng.org