FAH1223 wrote:sfam wrote:This is a good overview, but I would dispute Assad's support. He was well on his way out, and losing most of his territory until Russia intervened. Bottom line though, you had a relatively modern country, with most citizens well educated and living fine with others of different backgrounds. Now you have a complete nightmarish situation, which most agree Assad bears the majority of the blame, but so too do Russia, Obama, Iran, Turkey and the rest of the Middle east.
I don't have polls or a guide. But the minority groups have supported the government intensely. Assad is still standing because the Sunni business class in Damascus and Aleppo still back him... if they didn't, he'd have been gone long ago.. and most Syrians do not want the alternative. Aleppo's population didn't back the rebel groups in 2012 and the western part of the city remained the government stronghold.
I don't think Assad is on his way out immediately. Russia is pressing with the diplomatic talks in Kazakhstan. Iran is participating but wants to win militarily. The Syrian government has a Ministry of Reconciliation which is granting amnesty to fighters after areas are beseiged and busing them to Idlib with their arms or disarming them and letting them stay or go to Damascus, Latakia, Tartus, Aleppo, etc.
Turkey has backed off on the "Assad must go" mantra.
I blame the rise in sectarianism not only on Assad releasing the psychos from the prisons but Saudi/Qatar financed groups and media by fostering Shia/Sunni tension which as you said is foreign to Syria's culture and history. It is a mainly Sunni Muslim country but has had harmony amongst all its people despite an authoritarian regime of the Assad family.
Assad isn't on his way out at all now. He absolutely was prior to the Russians joined in propping him up. I attended numerous roundtables on this - there really wasn't much support for Assad other than from his Alawite base. His brutal and repressive response turned public sentiment away from him. Unfortunately there was never a united anything in the way of resistance. And its sort of impossible to discuss Syria without discussing Iraq and the ISIS incursion.
My understanding is most minorities and tribes have been gauging their own safety almost continually and changing course based on this. In studying armed actor dispersion, you find very little in the way of ideology driving the changing allegiances. As Assad has been doing better, its not surprising his support increases.
Bottom line though, Russia changed the dynamic completely. They haven't been fighting terrorists, they've been propping up chemical weapons wielding Assad.
I don't know anyone who thinks there is a real chance of the civil war actually ending any time in the next decade.
