You know things are bad

You know things are bad when you lay siege to your own capital.  They are worse if the rebels seize border posts.  The worst is if you flee to your ancestral homeland, with the apparent intention of making a last stand there. It’s even bad if no one knows where you are.  And its over the top bad if you start moving your chemical weapons, either to use them or to prevent them from falling into rebel hands.

Yes, Bashar al Asad’s days are numbered, but it is still unclear how many people he will kill before he meets his end.  Even after he is gone, Syria could implode in a frenzy of violence.  Bashar’s Alawite co-religionists are trying to carve out an enclave in the west, bombarding and murdering nearby Sunnis in the process.  Damascenes are leaving for safer ground.  Kurds are organizing themselves.  Christians and Druze face a risky choice:  Bashar, who has tolerated them, or a rebellion that may be far more Islamic than they will be able to tolerate.

An implosion inside Syria will necessarily have a broad impact in the region.  Turkey is already hosting upwards of 100,000 refugees and supplying the rebels inside Syria.  Jordan and Lebanon are also burdened with Syrians fleeing the violence.  The refugee presence has aggravated sectarian tensions inside Lebanon, where Sunnis are anxious to support the Syrian rebellion while Shia (and Hizbullah) are standing by Bashar.  Iraq has closed its border posts where the rebels have taken over, in an apparent effort to prevent the Sunni population of western Iraq from aiding the rebellion in Syria. The impact will be minimal:  that border is like a sieve.

The Russian and Chinese veto yesterday of still another modest Security Council resolution has guaranteed that Bashar will not hear a unified international community voice asking him to step down.  The Russians have doubled their bet on the regime and now stand to lose alliance, port and arms sales if the rebellion succeeds.  The hopes of many, including me, that they would abandon ship when it became apparent that it was sinking are not being realized.

The Americans are providing both rhetorical and real, covert support to the rebellion, whose success would be a major blow against American enemies Hizbullah and Iran.  But they have done little to prevent the kind of chaotic implosion that would spoil the triumph.  They seem concerned mainly with the possible use of chemical weapons.  My own guess–but it is only a guess–is that Bashar will find it hard to convince his soldiers to use them.  It is difficult for soldiers, especially in 100+ degree weather, to protect themselves from chemical weapons.  The soldiers will know how indiscriminate the effects are.

It is not clear how the international community would react to the use of chemical weapons.  I might hope that would change some minds in Moscow and Beijing, but I’ve begun to wonder.  It looks as if this is a challenge the current international system will fail to meet.  The outcome will be decided by violence inside Syria.  It is not going to be pretty.