President In Name Only

From street protests to insurgency to national insurrection. The remorseless escalation of Syria's conflict since it first broke out 16 months ago is the most striking feature of the challenge to President Bashar al-Assad's rule.

Repression has bred resistance, and vice versa, to the point where the country's biggest cities are becoming battlefields. Aleppo is dominated by the magnificent gatehouse of its Citadel, providing visual proof that possession of this ancient city has decided the fate of kings for centuries.

So it is with Assad today: his actions betray a grim awareness that the struggle for Aleppo is central to his regime's survival. He has been willing to strip neighbouring provinces of troops and tanks in order to mobilise forces for this battle, even though this effectively means turning over large areas of his country to de facto rebel control.

The outlines of Assad's new survival strategy are now emerging. He will do whatever it takes to hang on to Damascus and Aleppo and, so far as possible, the main north-south highway linking the two cities. But this leaves him with little choice but to concede most of rural Syria to his enemies.

In the past few weeks, instead of being president of his country, Assad has effectively become the embattled mayor of Damascus and Aleppo, plus the policeman of the road that joins them. As the war has escalated, so his realistic objectives have been downgraded.

In March last year, delivering his first speech since the outbreak of the street protests, Assad predicted that his regime would "magnificently succeed in passing the test" and "come out stronger". The president's next setpiece address came three months later - as demonstrations were beginning to turn into outright rebellion - and the rhetoric was less flowery, but he could still say that Syria's "destiny" was to "come out of crises stronger thanks to the solidarity and cohesion of its society".This year, as insurgency has tipped into insurrection, Assad's persona has changed to that of the sombre war leader. He still predicts victory, but his words are darker, with an acknowledgement of the suffering that has been inflicted in his name. "When a surgeon goes into the operating room, cuts a wound, the wound bleeds," he said last month. "Do we condemn the surgeon because his hands are bloodstained or do we praise him for saving a human being's life?"

There are tormented echoes here of Lady Macbeth: "Here's the smell of blood still / All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." When a president tries to rationalise his bloodstained hands, things really have reached a sorry pass. How has this happened and what does it mean for Mr Assad's friends and enemies?

Syria's armed forces have clearly been stretched to breaking point by this crisis. On paper, the army has 220,000 soldiers, but most of the rank-and-file are Sunnis - and their loyalty to Assad, whose regime is dominated by the minority Alawite sect, is not always guaranteed. Consequently, the burden of the fighting has fallen on two dependable units: the 4th division, under the de facto command of his brother, Maher, and the Republican Guard.

Together, these formations have no more than 30,000 men - less than 14% of the army's total strength - and they have borne the lion's share of the task of combating a national insurrection. Their soldiers have fought from Deraa in the south to Idlib in the north, and they have paid a grievous price: at least 5,000 Syrian troops are believed to have been killed by the rebels in the past 16 months. By way of comparison, America has lost 1,939 men in Afghanistan during almost 11 years of war.

Assad's foes, notably Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have directly armed those responsible for this bloodshed, while America and Britain have provided non-lethal help. In the process, the rebels have clearly become far more capable, particularly in the past few months. Western and Arab opponents of the regime will argue that they are saving lives by hastening Assad's downfall - and they could be right. But no one should be under any illusions about the suffering inflicted by this course.

Reduced to defending a handful of cities, and confident of the loyalty of only a fraction of his army, Assad is no longer bidding for outright victory. A core of his security forces can still be counted on to obey orders and defeat the rebels in pitched battles, but the clock is clearly ticking. He can still buy time - perhaps measured in months - but he cannot win.

Having invested greatly in his survival, what might lead Russia to question the wisdom of trying to stave off the inevitable? The answer, paradoxically, might be success for Assad in Aleppo. If he keeps this prize and hangs on to Damascus, but cedes most of the rest of Syria, he will be telling the world that total victory is no longer on the cards. His friends may then draw their own conclusions.













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