The impending disaster in Syria

The best thing in wars that cannot be won is to lose, and lose quickly. That not only saves lives and property, it also provides the loser with an exit.

The most problematic wars are those that can neither be won nor lost. This is exactly the case in Syria.

For years, and because it was evident that the Syrian struggle could not be resolved militarily, there has been hope that the Syrian crisis would eventually end by some kind of political settlement. This hope seems to be now dashed.

The Syrian army has been losing one battle after another in important and strategic parts of the country. Large and important areas of Syria are no more under the control of the Damascus government.

It is hard to expect an exhausted military machine that has been engaged in a tough war for over four-and-a-half years, that experienced massive human and material losses, to regain the initiative any time soon, if ever.

Loss of battles accelerates loss of morale and, at the same time, undermines soldiers’ appetite for pursuing a goal that is clearly out of reach.

Most likely, the Syrian military capacity has been stretched to the limit. 

Foreign forces that have been aiding Syrian government’s military effort, Hizbollah from Lebanon and the Revolutionary Guards from Iran, with promising results initially, also seem to be struggling hard to maintain their positions.

External attitudes towards this bloody conflict have been radically changing during this endless fight.

At the beginning, regional and foreign powers wanted the decades-long dictatorship of the Assad family to end and the great Syrian people should to be granted the freedom and dignity it deserved

That was at the peak of the so-called Arab Spring, when dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen were overthrown under massive people’s pressure.

The way revolutionary winds were steadily moving from one part of the Arab world to the other, with assured results in favour of determined people demanding fair and democratic administrations, justice, dignity, proper utilisation of their countries’ assets and accountability for incompetence and corruption, did justify any belief that it was only a matter of time before the dictator of Syria would recognise the new realities and step down. However, unexpected changes occurred.

Not only because neither political logic nor conventional wisdom apply to development of events in our part of the world, but also because a rare chain of factors combined to turn any expectations with respect to Syria upside down.

President Bashar Assad decided to confront all odds with one goal in sight: survival of the regime at any cost.

Determinedly, he remained loyal to this suicidal pursuit. His claim that it was not the Syrian people who initiated the “trouble” but foreign fighters armed and pushed by foreign enemies against the “last bastion of resistance” was quickly echoed by Assad major allies in Russia, Iran, Hizbollah and other factions in and outside Syria.

Ironically, this Syrian narrative turned to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Indeed, many regional powers, with world powers’ encouragement and support, hurried to send to the Syrian war theatre limitless numbers of fighters and to supply them with money and arms to topple the regime.

Similar mobilisation by Assad’s allies led to an unprecedented arms race with limited prospects that the war would be settled in any side’s favour, but with one inevitable certainty: The war would destroy Syria.

Not much of Syria remains standing now, and yet the destruction machine continues to grind. Neither the Syrian leader and those who support him nor the forces that seek his removal are willing to consider the disastrous outcome of this senseless war that did indeed so far destroy Syria — the country, the history, the state and the people — and that also carries the potential, if not checked, to threaten the entire region with dire consequences.

That neither side can win this war is understandable. What may be harder to perceive is why this war cannot be lost.

One reason is that it is too late for Assad to engage in any political discussion on the basis of principles laid down in Geneva or any other updated terms, because the regime, which missed golden opportunities when it had the upper hand, is not going to engage from a point of weakness and retreat.

Alternatively, Assad is not going to give up even if for the sake of saving the little that is left of Syria, because he will not in such case be granted the benefit of even a disgraceful defeat.

Much like other Arab dictators, in Iraq and Libya for example, the only option his miscalculation and bad political judgment has left him with is to fight to the end.

The fact that the warring factions in Syria are too many and too varied to apply any rules of engagement logic to their conduct is another reason.

Even if the official Syrian army is defeated and pushed out, the war will continue with more ferocity and savagery among the many other factions for years.

That is exactly what is happening in Libya, in Yemen and in Iraq, not to mention Somalia and Afghanistan.

What applies to regular armies hardly applies to extremist organisations, terrorists, misfits, mercenaries and proponents of weird and brutal ideologies.

Until recently, the last hope was to rescue the Syrian state system and institutions, with or without Assad, so that once a political compromise was reached, those institutions could resume their functions; so that some law and order can be restored; so that the land would free itself of extremists, terrorists and political opportunists.

That was the only way to avoid the mistakes that happened in Iraq when the army was foolishly dissolved and the state apparatus was abolished. Iraq is still paying dearly for that.

What awaits Syria is even worse. All those who continue to feed the war there are contributing to an impending disaster.