How Long Can The Syrian Regime Last?

How Long Can The Regime Last? -- The Economist

After the assassination of some of his closest colleagues, Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, is staring into the abyss.

EVEN by the standards of Syrian state television, the gap between fact and fiction yawned unusually wide on July 15th. With street battles rattling Damascus, the capital, for the first time in Syria’s 17-month uprising, a roaming camera crew struggled to find a picture of reassurance. “Nothing’s happening! Its completely quiet!” a trio of veiled women shouted at the microphone poked through their car window, as gunfire crackled in the background. They seemed anxious to speed off, as did a lone pedestrian waylaid on an eerily deserted boulevard, who briskly agreed that things were “normal—very, very normal”.

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My Comment: Because of the sectarian nature of this conflict, the Syrian regime can last a long time .... getting support from it's Allawite community as well as other smaller groups. But .... the Syrian regime cannot win a war of attrition .... which is what the Syrian civil war has evolved into. My prediction .... by the end of this year (if not sooner) the Assad regime will be gone with the leadership in exile and/or dead.