After repeated attempts to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over the last six years and the latest setbacks, the opposition may not only be losing the war but also losing support on the international stage.

The US appears to no longer be focused on removing Assad from power, and the UN's special envoy to Syria said that if the opposition was planning to win the war, "facts are proving that is not the case."

So, after many initial successes, how did it all go wrong? And was it a mistake for outside powers to back the various groups in the Syrian opposition to Assad?

In this week's Arena, veteran Middle East correspondent for The Independent, Patrick Cockburn, and Mohammed Alaa Ghanem, a policy adviser to the Syrian American Council, debate whether the Syrian opposition has lost the fight against Assad or whether they are still a force in play. Patrick Cockburn's latest book is The Age of Jihad.

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Source: Al Jazeera News