Michael Young

President Bashar Assad’s address last weekend, in which he admitted that the Syrian armed forces were losing territory because they were suffering from “manpower” problems, revealed a great deal about what lies ahead in Syria. 

In his remarks, Assad stated that his forces were short on men, and went on to outline what this meant for the regime. The situation imposed a sense of prioritization, he explained, obliging it to “designate” areas of the country which the regime would retain, while other parts of Syria would have to be surrendered out of concern for the soldiers deployed there. 

What this indicates is that Assad has formally adopted the Iranian and Russian recommendation that his forces regroup to more defensible areas, effectively giving up on wide swaths of Syria it had no hope of regaining, at least for now. This means the leadership has embraced the principle of de facto partition. Assad’s vacuous insistence that his regime would remain “steadfast” represented a startling contrast with what he told Russia’s former prime minister Sergei Stepashin last year, namely that by the end of 2014 the fighting in Syria would largely have died down because his men would have gained the upper hand. Now Assad is merely assuring us he will survive.

However, only days after the president’s address the military went on the counterattack in Hassakeh, removing ISIS from the last neighborhood it held in the city. Yet Hassakeh is one of those places that does not appear to be a regime priority. That suggests the concept of what is deemed vital territory by Assad and his acolytes may be flexible. But for Assad to come out so strongly to define and defend his policy also marks a new stage in the Syrian conflict, one in which Assad is willing to lend official cover to a strategy effectively fragmenting his country. 

This may come at precisely the right time, as Turkey and the United States seem to have reached an accord over American use of the Incirlik air base to bomb ISIS targets. While the finer points of the agreement remain unclear, among its components appear to be the establishment of a safe area inside Syrian territory, the removal of ISIS from this area and the training of Syrian opposition groups to ensure that ISIS will not return. 

According to Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper, the safe area will stretch from Marea, north of Aleppo, to Jarablus, on the Euphrates River. Other Turkish accounts said it may extend as far south as Al-Bab, which is located southeast of Marea, but would not include the city of Aleppo itself. 

If such a zone is established it will have a major bearing on events in northern Syria, particularly Aleppo. It would safeguard the closest supply line between rebels in the city and Turkey. Refugees may be settled in the zone, providing the rebels with a reservoir of recruits. It would also create a situation in which American warplanes operate in proximity to Syrian government positions. This raises the possibility that they could enter into confrontation with the Syrian forces. 

As far as the Syrian armed forces are concerned, defending Aleppo may soon become unsustainable, eliminating the last major regime presence in northern Syria. That is why Assad’s comments may, partially, have been preparation for this – an effort to cushion the impact of an eventual loss of Syria’s largest city by making it appear as part of a careful regime plan. 

Assad’s explanations also raised a question with particular relevance for Lebanon. If the regime is now endorsing de facto partition, in which the areas of Homs and Hama will remain under government control, what happens to the more than a million Syrian refugees in the country? A majority of Syrian refugees in Lebanon are Sunni, and neither Assad nor Hezbollah intends to allow them to return soon, if ever.

Hezbollah apparently is willing to turn Shiites into a minority in Lebanon in order for Alawites to better defend themselves in Syria. But that doesn’t really tell us much about the party’s long-term intentions. Hezbollah is not suicidal, nor does it seek a sectarian civil war at home. At some stage the grand plan to divide Syria and preserve a modicum of Assad rule has to include some solution to the refugee problem in Lebanon. 

Assad’s admission also unintentionally drew attention to the value of his remaining in office. In saying that the Syrian army had lost ground due to manpower problems, the Syrian president somehow admitted that his regime views events entirely in military terms. In recent years Assad has not bothered to introduce a political component for a solution to the Syrian war. His failure to do so again last weekend must have made many Syrians wonder about the benefits of advocating for their president’s political survival. If militarily Assad is on the ropes and politically he’s bankrupt, then of what use is he?

Indeed, Assad’s allies themselves seem to be asking that question. The Syrian president endures only because replacing him creates too much uncertainty – a fear shared by the Iranians and Russians on the one side, and the Americans on the other. Assad’s speech was the final step in persuading everyone that the Syrian president himself now knows he will never re-establish the control over Syria he enjoyed in early 2011.

So much for the Assads’ Arab nationalist or Syrian nationalist pretensions. Bashar inherited two major prizes when his father died in 2000 – Syria and Lebanon – and in just over a decade he managed to lose both. It is hard to believe that the naïve once regarded him as a refreshing break with Syria’s past. It shows the transcendent mediocrity of his performance that the grim, pitiless rule of his father can seem almost bearable by comparison.