I don’t think Bashar Assad can see his shadow

The AP breathlessly reports that Punxatawney Phil saw his shadow today, which means another six weeks of winter.  Based on recent data, I’m wondering if Syria’s Bashar al-Assad can say the same thing. 

Earlier this week the U.S. intelligence heads testified on Syria, and offered some surprising assessments:

Syrian President Bashar al Assad will not be able to maintain his grip on power in the wake of a wave of opposition that has dragged on for almost a year, America’s top intelligence officials told Congress today.

“I personally believe it’s a question of time before Assad falls,” James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, told the Senate Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  CIA Director David Petraeus added, “I generally subscribe to that as well.”

Clapper said “it could be a long time” before the Assad regime falls because of “the protraction of these demonstrations” and a Syrian opposition that remains fragmented.  Despite that, Clapper said “I do not see how long he can sustain his rule of Syria.”

Hey, remember how, a year ago, Clapper got into trouble for being honest about the state of affairs in Libya despite his honesty being a political inconvenience?  This is precisely why I find his testimony so credible. 

Recent facts on the ground buttress Clapper’s assessment — as does the Financial Times’ David Gardner’s reportage, which is chock-full of interesting facts about the Assad regime’s constrained ability to repress:

The [Assad] regime believed it could crush the uprising, which began in mid-March after revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, by the end of April and then in the summer Ramadan Offensive. It failed.

These operations revealed its reliance on two dependable units — the 4th Armoured Division and the Republican Guard, made up of Alawites, the heterodox Shia minority that forms the backbone of the regime, and commanded by Mr Assad’s volatile younger brother, Maher. Whenever the Assads deployed units with a rank-and-file reflecting Syria’s 70 per cent Sunni majority — as they had to if their offensives were to cover more than the hot spots of the moment — defections ensued.

Even more interesting is Gardner’s take on the evolving Russian position:

Russian diplomats…despite their rhetoric, have been talking to Syrian opposition figures and, according to the latter, carefully considering the Arab League proposals. As a veteran U.S. diplomat puts it, “there is a squishiness to where they [the Russians] are now”.

Russia does have a commercial interest in Syria, and arms the regime but the value of this depends on whether it will get paid, by a government running out of cash. It is only six years since Moscow had to write off more than $10bn in unpaid Syrian debts from the Soviet era.

Its real interest is in retaining its base facilities at the port of Tartus, its last naval asset in the Mediterranean. For that it will eventually need to reach an understanding with Syria’s future, not hold on to its past. Tartus is a long-term strategic asset. The Assads are no longer a long-term proposition.

This is new and interesting information, and does appear to track multiple reports that the negotiations in Turtle Bay will lead to an actual Security Council resolution on Syria. If Russia cuts a deal with the opposition and removes its veto from multilateral action, how long can Assad hold out? 

What do you think? Will Assad be out of power in Syria inside of six weeks or not?

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