Having vowed to retake every inch of his country’s pre-2011 territory, and made clear his disdain for an actual cease-fire, the Syrian president evidently believes he can only benefit from fighting on. After all, opposition forces are suffering from both military defeat and defections to jihadist groups, Islamic State is on the defensive, Russian and Iranian support seems unlimited, and no substantial Western aid is forthcoming for the rebels. Nonetheless, argues Ari Heistein, much is not going in Damascus’ favor:
[T]he Assad regime’s ability to function as a fighting and governing force is being steadily degraded by the grinding civil war and the growing cracks in its bases of support. Therefore, [it] is unlikely to expand its control over Syrian territory dramatically in the near future, [primarily because of] domestic issues such as its declining ability to maintain a centralized and cohesive fighting force and poor governance in areas under regime control.
Because the battered and exhausted Syrian Arab Army is spread so thin, foreign forces and local militias play an outsized role in the civil war. The decentralization of military control throughout the country has accentuated conflicting interests among different pro-regime groups, which has even resulted in clashes among these forces on the battlefield. . . . The Russian and Iranian military interventions have stabilized the Assad regime, but not facilitated its conquest of significant swaths of territory by any measure. . . .
As for governing the civilian population, there has been a growing voice of discontent even among the Alawite backbone of the regime, as evident from protests against corruption and security lapses as well as the Alawite religious establishment’s disavowal of the Assad regime. Since the outbreak of the war, the notorious corruption among Syrian government officials is reported to have become even more severe, as the steep decline in the value of Syrian currency has led state employees to supplement their wages with bribes. . . .
[Even if the regime does win back more territory], controlling a hostile population will present a nearly impossible task, considering that many of the regime’s local networks for control have been destroyed. [In short, it is a] fantasy that [Assad’s] overstretched, fragmented, and corrupt regime can reconquer and hold much more of Syria.
Read more on National Interest: http://nationalinterest.org/print/feature/does-assad-really-have-time-his-side-17891