He is working assiduously to turn Syria into a swamp in order to save what he can of his power and the lives of those around him. Assad is gambling on his enemies being unable to unite. This is certainly true if opposition forces remain as fragmented as they are today. The Syrian opposition will have difficulty defeating Assad’s army. Just as Lebanon’s Maronites did not create an independent state in the Lebanon Mountains, they did use it to deny Muslim forces undivided supremacy over Lebanon. I have argued that the Alawite region cannot be turned into an independent state, but it does provide Assad and the remnants of the Syrian Army a social base. If Assad must withdraw from Damascus, he will have nowhere to fall back on but Latakia and the coastal mountains. Already the Syrian Army has largely been transformed into an Alawite militia. It is a strategy of playing upon divisions to sow chaos. To avoid this, Assad is likely to pursue the Lebanon option: turn Syria into a swamp and create chaos out of Syria’s sects and factions. The broader Alawite community fears the possibility of aimless retribution. If Assad surrenders, hundreds of regime leaders will be executed or tried for crimes against their fellow countrymen. When the Lebanese came to terms with the fact that no one camp could impose its rule over the others, they had no choice but to bury the hatchet and move forward. After all, somewhere between 100,000 to 150,000 Lebanese were killed out of a population of three million during the civil war. All might have been taken to the international court and charged with crimes against humanity two decades ago. Today, Junblat, Geagea, Gemayyal, Franjia and other warlords are respected members of parliament and society. He may lose Syria, but could still remain a player, and his Alawite minority will not be destroyed. In order to survive, Assad and his Alawite generals will struggle to turn Syria into Lebanon – a fractured nation, where no one community can rule. If Sunni Arab rebels manage to unify or if foreign powers intervene directly, the survival of Assad’s military is unlikely. Should this happen, Syria’s civil war could end more like Lebanon’s - with a stalemate - rather than like Libya’s - with the death of the dictator and destruction of his military. They would be very hard to destroy on their home base, especially if foreign allies continue to support them with weapons and money. A likely outcome of the Syrian struggle is that Assad and his army will not break rather, they will likely retreat to the coastal region, where Alawite and loyal troops have a social base. I have argued the opposite in “ Creating a Syrian Swamp: Assad’s ‘Plan B’“. WINEP and Wikistrat analysts predict that Assad and his army will “fall”, “crumble”, or “break”.
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