Syria’s Civil War: The Ebb And Flow Of Horror -- The Economist
While each side makes minor gains and losses, overall a bloody stalemate persists
ACCORDING to President Bashar Assad, Syria’s three-year-old fratricide may soon be over. Speaking at Damascus University on April 13th, he declared that his army’s “war on terror” had reached a turning point. From now on, he implied, it would essentially be a mopping-up operation. His allies echo this rosy view. “The danger of the Syrian regime falling has ended,” was the recent judgment of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shia party-cum-militia that has pitched an estimated 5,000 fighters into the battle on Mr Assad’s behalf.
On the ground the picture is much more blurred. Rather than showing an irreversible tilt in favour of the regime’s forces, the latest fighting seems to have consolidated territories held by each side. True, Mr Assad faces a less imminent threat to his strongholds, but he lacks the manpower to extend any of his gains very far. Syria remains in effect partitioned into zones held by the government and a patchwork of opponents. Short of far more potent intervention by outside forces, it is hard to see any early military resolution to the conflict.
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My Comment: The stalemate in this civil war will end if another major power gets directly involved .... or if Syrian President Assad is deposed and/or killed. Otherwise ... this conflict will probably last just as long as the Lebanese civil war ... if not longer.
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