The End of Assad??

For nearly two years, Bashir al Assad of Syria has been slaughtering his own people.  About 70,000 have died in the civil war that Assad fomented, and the overwhelming majority of those deaths were the result of assaults on civilians by the Assad forces.  Now it seems that there may actually be some movement towards ending the fighting.  The Russian news agency is reporting that the Assad government has announced that it is prepared to meet with and negotiate a settlement with the rebel forces.  This is big news.  Throughout the fighting, the Assad side has called its opponents foreign led terrorists.  Assad has refused to even recognize that there is a civil war, let alone that his opponents are a mass movement in Syria.  If Assad is willing to negotiate, it means he recognizes that he cannot survive otherwise.  Of course, it may well be that the announcement has nothing to do with Assad.  Since it appears in the Russian press, it may be that this is the first step by Russia to ease Assad out of power while attempting to retain influence in the Syria that follows.  Russia and Iran have been the principal supporters of Assad during the fighting.  If Russia changes its position, it will be a mortal blow to Assad's hopes of survival.  After all, who will prevent UN action once Russia switches sides?  (Just writing that sentence made me laugh; the idea of meaningful UN action on Syria is a joke.)

In any event, let's hope that we are seeing the beginning of the end in Syria.  Hopefully, the new government will be sane and anti-Iranian.  I feel reasonably sure about the anti-Iranian part.  We will have to wait to see if they are sane.