Russian-backed Assad has never been weaker

Russian-backed Assad has never been weaker

It's not surprising that Bashar al Assad appeared a little smug when he announced victory over rebels in Aleppo.

But he is misguided. His dynasty has seldom looked weaker.

Syria's president and the cabal that surrounds him are now entirely dependent on foreigners for their survival.

The revolution against his rule is far from over, which means he will continue to rely on unreliable allies.

Top of the list is Russia.


Vladimir Putin intervened in Syria to protect his warm water port in Tartus but also to send a signal to other autocrats, especially in Asia, that if you're a Russian friend now Moscow won't abandon you in the face of democratic uprising.

Image: People have been evacuated from rebel-held areas in east Aleppo

Russia's air power has proved devastating to the rebellion.

Combined with a profligate disregard for civilian casualties in cities like Idlib and Aleppo, the rebels have been driven back into two separate main areas in the north and far south of the country.

On the ground Syrian government forces have weakened and evaporated.

Assad: 'History' made in Aleppo

Even the famed Shabiha (ghost) militia has faded away. So infantry and artillery have poured in from Hezbollah in south Lebanon, Iraqi Hezbollah, Shia fighters (often press ganged) from Iran alongside the Revolutionary Guards and even volunteers from Afghanistan.

Without them, the so-called "liberation" of Aleppo would have been impossible.

On top of that, even Assad's supporters must acknowledge that he simply does not have support from most Syrians.

Where is the convoy taking people fleeing Aleppo?

It's hard to imagine a future in politics for a man who so industrially orders the killing of potential constituents.

So he will never be able to trust his own people.

A member of the Alawite sect, which claims connections to Shia Islam, Assad has made much of the "terrorist" connections of rebel groups.

But many fighters who took up the war against him were not motivated by Islamic jihad but a ferocious hope that democracy could replace dictatorship.

Rebels and civilians taken from Aleppo on buses

Minority groups, among the some Christians and Druze, threw their lot in with him but they must also know that in a Sunni-majority country they cannot expect to survive indefinitely behind a wall of foreign fighters.

Iran has been vital to the survival of the Assad regime.

It has interests in maintaining its "Shia crescent" which extends through Iraq into Syria and south Lebanon.

And is underpinned by an obsessive hatred of Israel most concentrated in Hezbollah, the south Lebanese Shia militia which is less focused on destroying the "Zionist entity" now than propping up Assad.

Supporting an unpopular dictatorship in a foreign country is a feeble motivation for war, much less martyrdom.

Eye in the Sky: Russian warplanes monitor the Aleppo convoy

So maintaining the Assad regime will soon feel more of a chore than a duty to ordinary fighting men a long way from home.

But ridding Syria of a regime that has fuelled hatred against it with the blood of its own people is an ideology and creed that is unlikely to ever fade.