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Monday 02 September 2013A game-changer for Assad, even if there is no U.S. strikeHaaretz The American �bank of targets� for Syria has undergone a demographic change over the past few days. Based on opposition reports, the Syrian army has taken control of dozens of schools and mosques near the sites expected to be targeted in the U.S. attack, and the army has transferred officers and soldiers to the schools and mosques under the assumption that the United States will avoid attacking such civilian sites. In addition, hundreds of prisoners have been moved to the expected target sites to serve as human shields. All this is in addition to the reports of the killing, on the order of army high command, of the head of the chemical weapons department of the Republican Guards, who is responsible for the use of chemical weapons. It is hard to verify these reports, but there is no doubt that the extension Syrian President Bashar Assad received from U.S. President Barack Obama will allow him to prepare the target sites very well in a way that will make it hard for the U.S. administration to bomb them. Alternatively, the preparations will damage the legitimacy of the attack after the fact � since an attack that will kill hundreds or even thousands of civilians is not exactly the goal Obama is aiming for. But the living fence Assad is building at the target sites, and his declarations that �Syria is prepared for the attack,� cannot hide the shock that has hit his closest allies: Russia and Iran. Russia has decided to freeze the shipment of refurbished MiG jets, the S300 antiaircraft missiles, and the Yak training planes to Syria � based on reports in the Russian newspaper Kommersant. The official Russian explanation is that Damascus has not met its payment conditions, but it seems that the timing is no coincidence. The use of chemical weapons has rocked Russia�s steadfast position against the United States. Even though Moscow continues to claim it was not the Syrian regime that used the chemical weapons, the Kremlin will have to deal with the evidence presented to it � most likely during the G-20 summit this week. Nor can declarations coming from Tehran be particularly encouraging for Assad: Iranian President Hassan Rohani denounced the use of chemical weapons � but avoided placing the responsibility on any of the sides. Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanaji justified the American attack and even the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made do with a warning that an attack on Syria would be a disaster, but he did not promise direct military support for Damascus. But while the threat of the attack is still in the air, and since a cold wind is blowing in from Russia, the diplomatic channel has not been completely blocked. Russia may well propose that instead of an attack the regime transfer its inventory of chemical weapons to Russian territory � similar to what was proposed at the time for Iran on the matter of enriched uranium � or for the chemical weapons to be destroyed under international supervision. Russia, which is trying to achieve a �Geneva 2� meeting, may very well also propose a quick schedule for transferring power from Assad to a temporary and agreed upon government � as an alternative to a military attack. Nonetheless, there is a need for the groom�s agreement as well as that of the opposition to hold a dialogue with representatives of the Assad regime. The opposition does not have that many options today. The Free Syrian Army has not succeeded in defeating the government, and despite the fresh new 400 tons of weapons and ammunition, it is able to win only relatively small tactical battles, but is having a hard time creating a contiguous area of control. The expectation was that the American attack would pave the way for a military victory. As of now, there have been no reports of strategic coordination between the United States and the Free Syrian Army. A few conjectures have been made on the matter, but after Obama�s speech U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made do with telephone calls to the civilian opposition leadership and with a representative of Saudi Arabia. In the calls Kerry promised that the United States would not backtrack from placing the responsibility on Syria. The leadership of the Syrian opposition did not mince its words yesterday in expressing the depth of its disappointment over the delay of the attack. One of the opposition representatives who is in Turkey told Haaretz that �it is possible that in the end there will not be an attack and we will remain in the same situation we were in before the use of chemical weapons.� As to whether they would be willing to turn to the diplomatic channel in such a case, the opposition representative said: �We will need to decide at the time. If there is an attack it is possible we will be able to continue the struggle and win, but if there isn�t � it seems we will not be left with a choice,� he said. This is not the opposition�s official position, in which it continues to support the military struggle as the only way to overthrow Assad. But it is still worth mentioning that the opposition, like the Free Syrian Army, is not a monolithic group and decisions made today are not necessarily binding tomorrow. |