The Writing On The Wall

If Iran and Russia are no longer so certain they will remain committed to backing a loser, and it begins to look increasingly that way to observers, then finally Syria's butchering President Bashar al-Assad is on his way out. It has taken years to accomplish, if that really is what's happening, but better an internal collapse than the Western intervention which represented British Prime Minister David Cameron's attempt in 2013 to persuade his allies and particularly the United States that Assad's use of chemical weapons against Syrian Sunnis required a reaction that might have succeeded in removing him then.

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  A member of al Qaeda's Nusra Front takes down a picture of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in

  the northwestern city of Ariha, after a coalition of insurgent groups seized the area in Idlib province

  on May 29, 2015. Reuters/Ammar Abdullah

Russia's President Putin smooth-talked U.S. President Obama into taking the diplomatic route and while the country's stockpile of chemical weapons was largely removed, the threat of Assad's military barrel-bombing, strafing and starving his population did not cease. Now, finally, he is hemmed in on all sides and it appears the tyranny of the Assad dynasty after 40 years is slated to come to a thudding conclusion. Assad's traditional weapons suppliers, Iran and Russia, have recalled their battlefield 'advisers'. Without that support Assad would never have been capable of holding out for four years.

Like the proverbial rats scrambling to leave the sinking ship, Assad will now be left without Russian and Iranian backing. The superiority in the air against the rebels through the Syrian airforce is about to crumble. Syrian planes, weapons, spare parts and training, courtesy of Russia, are on the wane. Funding, supplies and fighters from the terrorist Lebanese group Hezbollah fighting alongside the regime's militias may begin to dwindle as Iran draws back from inciting its proxy militia to remain in Syria where its battles against al-Nusra and ISIS have seen it lose face as they gain traction.

That Bashar al-Assad is now on the defensive seems clear enough in view of the losses he has suffered lately in the wake of his earlier successes defending the Alawite heartland around Damascus from ISIL penetration. There are those who speculate that Moscow and Tehran are now adjusting their expectations to reflect the reality of a weakened Syrian army, which has lost up to 50,000 of its military in the four years of the civil war, and is desperately trying to convince Syrians to enlist to take the place of those who have perished.

It is the goal of all concerned to stop ISIS in its march to Damascus. The hope is that talks between the United States, Russia and Iran will result in a mutual agreement finally that concentrates on removing Assad from the presidency, to replace him with a figure acceptable to all concerned. The worry has been that if that mad butcher is removed an even more sinister and evil presence will take his place. That presence, needless to say could be identified as the caliph of Islamic State.

ISIL terrorists have reached Hassia on the main road north from Damascus to Homs, taking up positions west of the Lebanese border, as though preparing to split the country, and threatening Lebanon. Hezbollah is itself fighting a three-way conflict in the area from the border to the interior of Lebanon. ISIL has pushed against the regime's defence that is withering under its onslaught exposing Homs to its predations.

Fighters from a coalition of Islamist forces stand on a huge portrait of Syrian President Bashar Assad in March in the Syrian city of Idlib in the northwest part of the country. The capture of Idlib was one of several significant victories by the opposition in recent weeks.   Zein Al-Rifai/AFP/Getty Images

"ISIL controls some of Hassia", stated a media activist from Homs, Khodair Khashafa. The small town of Hassia sitting close tot he highway connecting Damascus to Homs and all the country's northern cities is a vital link to the Alawite areas of the coast, the heartland of the Alawite regime. Syrian rebel groups unaffiliated with Islamists but with some contact with Jabhat al-Nusra remain the dominant fighting forces backed by Saudi Arabia, supplied through Jordan, wresting parts of Dera'a province from the regime.

The loss of the major city of Idlib in the northwest has the regime in a desperate attempt to attempt enticing more men to volunteer but recruitment is being resisted now, even in the Alawite heartlands.