Deep Divisions, Clear Divide

"Our heroic forces have completely cleansed the Midan area of terrorist mercenaries" Syrian state television.

Strike one blow for the rebels; it represents a feat of great magnitude to have infiltrated the state's most secure area and building; to have penetrated its inner sanctorum where President Bashar al-Assad state-security entourage was wiped out in one fell swoop.  A fourth member of the elite security establishment, the regime's  head of general security, Hisham Ikhtiyar, has joined the previous three in a meeting with the Grim Reaper.

On the other hand, as stated by a television announcement, with the help of its superior arms, including a massive assault on Midan involving tanks, helicopter gunships and artillery, the regime was successful in having been able to "cleanse" the Damascus suburb of Midan.  Although the rebels fought tooth and nail to retain their tenuous holdings in the capital, their fewer numbers and lesser firepower left them unable to compete.

"Operation Damascus Volcano" was successful, granted, bringing the rebellion to Damascus.  The regime's opponents demonstrated their capability at infiltration and targeting prime candidates.  But rebel fighters have become corpses on streets lined with burned-out vehicles and deep in rubble.  Even while they are still fighting back in pockets around the city, as testified to by ongoing sniper fire.

While they've lost ground in and around Damascus, they've gained at the borders between Syria and Turkey where government forces were recalled to help retake Damascus from the rebels.  And even though the Security Council finally extended the 300-member observer mission a further 30 days, a sober assessment by the UN's chief observer, Maj.-Gen. Robert Mood, claimed it was totally 'irrelevant' without a political solution.

It is not only these four men of President al-Assad's inner circle that have been sent to meet their Maker in a huge explosion from a timed device carefully hidden in the 'secure' chamber where they were to meet to hammer out more effective military strategies to defeat the Free Syrian Army rebels, but the regime itself is now clearly facing the inevitability of the end of its days.

The clear and opposing divide between the country's majority Sunni Muslim population, far less advantaged by the machinations of the Alawite Baath party of President al-Assad than the less populous Shia-Alawite Muslim minority, can no longer be held in check.  The Sunnis, having decided that they would no longer tolerate their decades-old position of less-advantaged demanded just due.  Denied that, they will not settle for less than the total rout of the regime.

That collision course has brought out the absolute worst in both sides.  Each recognizing they have much to lose with the triumph of the other, there are no longer any constraints that either will recognize in their dedication to unseat the other; one from its total control of the country, the other from its aspirational goal to become possessed of the total control of the country.  Their ages-old antipathy was on a slow simmer and it has now come to a raging boil.

It is not only the Alawite command of the military, but the irregular militias represented by the shabbiya, as deadly tools of the regime.  The atrocities that the regime has visited on their opponents; arrest and torture of young people and adults alike, indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas, along with the mass slaughter of civilians suspected of being tolerant of the opposition, has ensured that when the time comes, a like fate awaits supporters of the regime.

The ethnic Syrian Druze community, Syrian Christians and and Kurds, sheltered from the malign influence of fanatical Sunni Muslims whom Bashar al-Assad consistently names 'terrorists', for among them are the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafists and members of al-Qaeda, can only guess at their fate when the Sunni majority take their turn at wielding ultimate power.

Meanwhile, Syrians are on the move, streaming out of Syria over the border into Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.  Iraq has recalled its own refugees to return from Syria, and appears to be halting the ingress of native Syrians into Iraq.  "We have gone from an average of 1,000 a day to possibly up to 30,000 in the last 48 hours.  This is really significant, it is clearly a massive upscaling in displacement", warned UNHCR.

Apart from the population of Syria itself and its sectarian representation and who loses and who rules, there is the matter of the manner in which its neighbours will be impacted.  With its influence in Syria gone as al-Assad departs, the Islamic Republic of Iran will mourn, and Saudi Arabia will rejoice in their own power struggle.  Iran will lose its conduit to a corridor leading to Israel through Hezbollah in Lebanon, a terror militia creation armed and supported by both Iran and Syria.

The fractious and bitter relations between the Muslim sects that will remain within Syria will represent a concern for its neighbours, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, who have good reason to fear becoming infected by the same vigorously practised and violent hatred between their own minority, sectarian populations.

"Syria is a path for the resistance and a bridge of communication between the resistance and Iran", moaned Hezbollah's chief, Hassan Nasrallah, in deep mourning for his assassinated colleagues in Syria, all of whom he will miss dearly.