Is there any hope in Syria?

After more than 2 years of civil war and death of more than hundred thousand people, Syria seems to be a quagmire for the western world where they wanted a regime change for strategic reasons but instead they have made Syria what Afghanistan was after the Soviet with drawl. And although US did suffer for supporting Taliban, which provided sanctuary to Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, they seems to have made the same mistake again.

Indeed there were some genuine grievances of people in Homs and other areas when the Syrian Civil War started but it was soon misused by other regional powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia for ideological purposes by hitting on the historical differences between the Sunni's and the Alawites. US and other western nations, in particular France and UK, saw this as an opportunity to bring about a regime change for their own strategic purposes. And then there were Russia, which has a naval base in Syria, and Iran to complete the whole gamut of ideological and strategic reasons for the push and pull that was seen in the last 2 years. Iran uses Syria for transferring arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon. For Russia, Syria serves as a naval base (Material-Technical Support Point) to support its operations in the Mediterranean. 

Thus the Great War was started with both sides using everything in their arsenal to take Syria into their control. Alawites, an off-shoot of Shia's, want Assad to continue as they have seen the massacre perpetrated on them by the Sunni's and are afraid of the same if Syria is ruled by Islamic Fundamentalists. Saudi Arabia on the other hand want the Sunni's to rule Syria as they believe that Shia's are a danger to their ideology in the long run. And although the Syrian border is relatively peaceful for Israel after taking the Golan Heights in the Six Day war, still Israel is concerned about the arms supply to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Syria by Iran. Thus it wanted a regime change which would be a puppet of West and Saudi Arabia and thus that would stop the material support to Hezbollah for its operations against Israel.

The West was on a high in 2011, having killed Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya and was hopping to do the same in Syria. It was unaware of the consequences of assassinating Gaddafi as to what will be its impact on Libya. Two years down the line we can see Libya divided on tribal lines with militias rather than military controlling the country and one where even the PM can be kidnapped by the militias for airing views against them.

Since regional countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey wanted a regime change at any cost, they supported anyone and everyone with weapons which has led to the present situation where the Free Syrian Army is being pushed away by more radical and fundamental groups like the Islamic Front dominated by Salafis – Sunni Muslims who hold to puritanical and literalist readings of Islam working with the al-Qaeda-aligned Jabhat al-Nusra on the battlefield, and welcomes recruits from among the thousands of foreign fighters – including the thousand-plus European Muslims – who have travelled to Syria to fight Assad. Then there are groups like Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham which are most powerful jihadist group in Syria. The moderates in Free Syrian Army are unable to do much on the battlefield in the presence of these groups as they even fight with the FSA for ideological or territorial disputes thus prompting the US and UK to suspend its non-lethal aid to FSA in the light of its communication equipment’s being stolen by the radical Islamist groups after ransacking of the FSA base.

On the other hand Russia provided critical arms to Syria and Iran's Revolutionary Guards provide training to Syria's Army along with crucial intelligence. Iran also ensured support for Syria from the Hezbollah’s well-trained fighters. After the accusation of use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces, Russia played a critical role in ensuring that a deal is reached wherein the chemical weapons will be destroyed in lieu of the West not attacking Syria.

The situation on ground in Syria right now is such that Assad's forces are winning the battle on the field as the West is unsure about providing support to the radical Islamist rebels while the FSA and moderates are thinning out. With the help of Hezbollah, Syria has been able to gain strategic victories on the ground and may be able to secure the routes to Lebanon, thus cutting off the rebel supply routes. This could tighten Assad's grip over the north-south axis of the country, protect the pro-Assad coastal areas, and choke off rebel links in and out of Lebanon.

Syrian National Coalition, the political body linked to the moderate rebels – have little ability to influence events on the ground; those with the influence, like the Islamic Front, will not show up at the  so-called Geneva II conference set for January 22 backed by US and Russia. With Assad winning on ground and the SNC having little influence on the radicals, it seems that the only hope for Syria is if Syrian Army takes control over the nation and drives out the radicals. There is no way that the moderates in FSA can have any impact now as the window of opportunity has passed for them. It is either Assad or the radicals fighting for control as the West is thinking "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know". So Western efforts will now turn to containment: shielding Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, and Iraq from the spill-over, checking the spread of jihadists, tracking European fighters returning to their home countries, destroying Syria’s chemical weapons, and praying that next year’s peace talks do not degenerate into a complete farce.