May 05, 2013

The Angry Arabs Will No Longer Fight Against Syria

This was never a “revolution”. I among other leftists in Lebanon signed a petition early on after the events in Deraa in which we denounced the regime and mocked and dismissed its narrative of armed groups roaming the country and shooting at people. I now figure that I was dead wrong: I do believe that armed groups were pre-prepared and armed to strike when orders (from Israel and GCC countries) arrive. They had a mission and it had nothing to do with the cause of liberation of Syria from a tyrannical regime.

It took As'ad AbuKhalil, the Angry Arab , two years to come to his senses and to acknowledge his errors:It was quite obvious that the insurgency in Syria was preplanned and managed from professional outside forces. Why did it take so long to recognize that?

It seems that the Israeli air attacks yesterday were many and severe. They hit several Syrian army installations and units and are obvious outright acts of a war of aggression. The attacks Thursday or Friday on alleged "weapon transports to Hizbullah" were only a diversion to set a propaganda picture for today's air campaign. The U.S. will at least have known of this plan. It is likely that it helped to develop the target list.

A response will come, either through Lebanon or at sea, but not immediately. Five days ago Israel called up reservists for a surprise live fire training maneuver in the north. This supposedly to hold of an immediate retaliation for the long planned attack. But it can not keep reservist in the field for long. The economic impact is too big.

This air attack happened after the Syrian army's offense against the foreign sponsored insurgents showed some serious progress. Israel and the U.S. want to prolong the fighting. To achieve that they hit the Syrian army to "level the playing field". As even As'ad AbuKhalil finally acknowledges their aim is to destroy Syria. Not Bashar Assad, not the government but Syria the country. Their aim has not yet been achieved.

The Israeli attack and its now obvious cooperation with the so called Free Syrian Army will have a significant negative impact on the insurgency. In the early phase many Jihadist from other countries came to Syria because they believed in the propagandized cause of overthrowing an, in their view, un-islamic regime. That early flood has already changed to a trickle. It will now run dry. Likewise many Syrian patriots who had joined the insurgency will now change their mind. Defections from the army to the insurgency had already stopped. We will now see defectors from the insurgents who will be willing to (re-)join the army. They will have valuable intelligence.

In my estimate, gained from hundreds of videos and reports, the total number of insurgents has never been above 30,000. Early on casualties were compensated for by new recruitment. But the recent gains of the Syrian army already had me guessing that the number of insurgents was in decline. Either through defections, people being just tired of it and going home or due to weapon impacts. This process will now accelerate.

This hemorrhage of personal is something neither the U.S. nor Israel can compensate for without putting boots on the ground. Something neither wants to do. A dwindling number of insurgents and the drying up of their recruitment pools, while the Syrian army can still replenish its ranks (if needed from outside the country) makes it certain that the insurgency will lose. The larger formations that currently hold territory will diminish in strength and melt away into a underground terror campaign that will be more of a nuisance than a real national danger. The Angry Arabs now more and more understand what this war is really about. They will no longer fight against Syria. Israel's attack accelerated that process.

Posted by b on May 5, 2013 at 16:19 UTC | Permalink

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