The Syrian civil war, with its causes and eventual outcome, is being largely ignored. World attention is now concentrating on the Frankenstein like side-effects of the Iraq war – Islamic State (IS or ISIS) – and its spillover into the fertile anarchy of Syria. The Assad presidency, whose dire predictions of chaos to foreign meddlers have become too embarrassing for the latter to concede, is now but a footnote on the issue of regional terrorism. The West wonders how it could have come to this; how many of its youth have become drawn to the struggle in Syria (and Iraq), ignoring the causes and their tremendous responsibility for the current state of affairs. For this reason alone, Bashar al-Assad and the Baathist party in Damascus are worthy of consideration. Indeed, it is time for al-Assad to be rehabilitated and included in the process of resolving – if such a verb is even legitimate given the extent of the anarchy – the problem of ISIS and the Syrian civil war itself. That fight has been stolen from him – Western, Saudi, and Qatari-funded foreigners rather than native Syrians have taken over and they have made the very kind of progress in Syria that the West claims to have been fighting since the 9/11 attacks in the United States. The rebels (at least those that have any power and influence) are motivated not by democracy but by the ultimate installation of an Islamic state.
Assad is unlikely to regain control over all of Syria, although he is well situated to continue fighting and to prevent the opposition from taking over the rest of the country. The regime has contracted around a corridor that connects Damascus, Homs, and the coast, and Assad can continue to rely on a broadly cohesive and mostly Alawite core of soldiers and militias, backed by Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah. Assad has almost pushed out ISIS and FSA and now it is time for Assad to rehabilitate the Syria and strengthen its border to keep ISIS away.
Source: Shafaqna Pakistan