{"id":21686,"date":"2014-12-26T14:23:05","date_gmt":"2014-12-26T19:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=21686"},"modified":"2014-12-26T14:31:51","modified_gmt":"2014-12-26T19:31:51","slug":"2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/","title":{"rendered":"2014 Roundup and 2015 Predictions by Aron Lund"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"lund\"2014 Roundup and 2015 Predictions<\/strong>
\nBy Aron Lund
\nDecember 25, 2014 for Syria Comment<\/em><\/p>\n

Lots of things happened in 2014, but the single most important development was the rise of the Islamic State as an independent<\/a> actor<\/a> in Syria<\/a> and as a global bogeyman, shifting the terms of Western and Arab Syria debate. The split between the Islamic State and the rest of the rebels in Syria has changed dynamics within the Syrian opposition and forced other rebels back into the Western\/Gulfie fold. It’s also slowly but surely alienating<\/a> Jabhat al-Nosra from the rebel mainstream. The end result is a somewhat clearer bloc formation but also an overall weakening of the anti-Assad side, particularly the non-jihadi rebels in the north.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even more, the IS capture of Mosul<\/a> in June, which threatened to bring down the Iraqi state\u2013already rotting from the inside\u2013has changed the international and regional dynamics. Now we have a US-led international military intervention in both countries, with mission creep in one or more directions being almost inevitable over time. And with all eyes on the Islamic State, Western media\/political debate are increasingly beginning to describe the Syrian war as a counter-terrorism issue and have lost track of the fundamentals in a rather worrying way. This might seem like good news for Bashar, and it is \u2013 but so far not good enough to rehabilitate his regime politically or make it strong enough to claw back the parts of Syria that it lost. We’ll see how this develops. (The US is already flying air support for the Syrian Arab Army in Deir al-Zor, but it’s not something we’re supposed to talk about.)<\/p>\n

\n

In 2015, there are a few things to watch, including of course the Aleppo situation and the UN freeze, the international aerial campaign and whether it will burst the Islamic State bubble or not, the various international realignments, and the (lack of) efforts to contain Lebanon’s northeastern meltdown. But if I were to point to one single factor that gets nowhere near the attention it deserves and that could suddenly turn Syria upside down, it’s the regime’s fraying base: finances, infrastructure, and perhaps manpower.<\/p>\n

The fuel crisis<\/a> and other internal systemic failures are growing and may at some point become unmanageable. It’s winter now and that’s of course part of the reason, but it seems more profound than that. From the looks of it, Bashar has simply run out of money and the infrastructure has deteriorated too far over four years of war. In addition, the IS is currently hitting key energy nodes like the Shaer fields and the US bombings in the east are sapping overall fuel supply. Iranian and Russian supplies are what has kept the regime afloat so far, but now their own economies are under terrific strain, due to the plunging oil price and sanctions. International humanitarian aid is not keeping up<\/a> with rising needs either, and donor fatigue is already a major problem \u2013 2015 will undoubtedly be worse. So, will the pressure ease up or not? If not, how long can this go on without something breaking?<\/p>\n

Related to this, there’s an increasing number of reports about the dire manpower situation on the regime side. There are reports of the SAA rounding up young men in regime territory, renewed enforcement of travel bans for military-age males, and rumors of a general mobilization that \u2013 even if false \u2013 reflect a genuine concern. Why is this becoming an issue now? One reason is probably that Assad has trouble paying his footsoldiers, or that Iran and others aren’t chipping in in the same way they used to. Another is that Iraqi Shia militias have drifted back across the border to fight the Islamic State in their homeland since June. Another is that Bashar will need more people than he currently has to sustain an increasingly ambitious military posture: he wants to secure gains in Damascus\/Homs, hold the fort in Hama and Deraa and the northwest, and also tip the scales in Aleppo. More fundamentally, the militiafication<\/a> of the regime seems to have advanced to a point where it’s having trouble shifting forces around according to military needs. Even if Assad has tens of thousands of available reserves on paper, many of them are now essentially village guards and sectarian\/tribal militias that won’t go voluntarily to fight outside their home areas and that would in many cases be fairly useless if compelled to do so.<\/p>\n

To be clear, the regime remains at an advantage in purely military terms and seems to be within reach of a breakthrough in Aleppo \u2013 that’s a potential game-changer. And Bashar continues to reap the benefits of fighting an opposition so venal and dysfunctional that no one wants to help it to power anymore \u2013 except maybe Erdogan. That remains his trump card. But if Bashar was betting that time is on his side, it’s really not and this must surely affect regime calculations, now that the UN freeze plan, the rise of the Islamic State, and other international dynamics are starting to offer new political horizons.<\/p>\n

Aron Lund,
\neditor of Syria in Crisis <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2014 Roundup and 2015 Predictions By Aron Lund December 25, 2014 for Syria Comment Lots of things happened in 2014, but the single most important development was the rise of the Islamic State as an independent actor in Syria and as a global bogeyman, shifting the terms of Western and Arab Syria debate. The split […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[103,122,256,106,286],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aron-lund","category-free-syrian-army","category-isis","category-nusra","category-syrian-revolution-2014"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n2014 Roundup and 2015 Predictions by Aron Lund - Syria Comment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2014 Roundup and 2015 Predictions by Aron Lund - Syria Comment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"2014 Roundup and 2015 Predictions By Aron Lund December 25, 2014 for Syria Comment Lots of things happened in 2014, but the single most important development was the rise of the Islamic State as an independent actor in Syria and as a global bogeyman, shifting the terms of Western and Arab Syria debate. The split […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Syria Comment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-26T19:23:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-12-26T19:31:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lund.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joshua\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@joshua_landis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@joshua_landis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Joshua\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/\",\"name\":\"2014 Roundup and 2015 Predictions by Aron Lund - Syria Comment\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lund.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-12-26T19:23:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-12-26T19:31:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3b31d23576e1b8c0928811e638957c80\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lund.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lund.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"2014 Roundup and 2015 Predictions by Aron Lund\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Syria Comment\",\"description\":\"Syrian politics, history, and religion\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3b31d23576e1b8c0928811e638957c80\",\"name\":\"Joshua\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.joshualandis.com\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/joshua_landis\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/author\/syriacomment\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"2014 Roundup and 2015 Predictions by Aron Lund - Syria Comment","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"2014 Roundup and 2015 Predictions by Aron Lund - Syria Comment","og_description":"2014 Roundup and 2015 Predictions By Aron Lund December 25, 2014 for Syria Comment Lots of things happened in 2014, but the single most important development was the rise of the Islamic State as an independent actor in Syria and as a global bogeyman, shifting the terms of Western and Arab Syria debate. The split […]","og_url":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/","og_site_name":"Syria Comment","article_published_time":"2014-12-26T19:23:05+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-12-26T19:31:51+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lund.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Joshua","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@joshua_landis","twitter_site":"@joshua_landis","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Joshua","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/","url":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/","name":"2014 Roundup and 2015 Predictions by Aron Lund - Syria Comment","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lund.jpg","datePublished":"2014-12-26T19:23:05+00:00","dateModified":"2014-12-26T19:31:51+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3b31d23576e1b8c0928811e638957c80"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lund.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lund.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/2014-year-end-roundup-predictions-2015-aron-lund\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"2014 Roundup and 2015 Predictions by Aron Lund"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/","name":"Syria Comment","description":"Syrian politics, history, and religion","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3b31d23576e1b8c0928811e638957c80","name":"Joshua","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.joshualandis.com","https:\/\/x.com\/joshua_landis"],"url":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/author\/syriacomment\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p38J3A-5DM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21686"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21694,"href":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21686\/revisions\/21694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}