Amazingly enough, I feel like writing about politics. But this ain't good enough for Hot Air, so it just goes here.

Things are beginning to fall apart for Assad in Syria. There was a suicide assassination bombing which managed to kill a large number of Assad's key lieutenants. (Over the last ten years, the vast majority of suicide attacks have been nearly worthless, but there have been a few which have been extremely effective. The Spanish railway bombings, for one thing. And this particular assassination was very significant.)

The rebels are now operating in Damascus, and apparently doing pretty well there. Reports are that government troops are less and less apparent, and there's the sound of fighting pretty much all the time. And the rebels just seized several important border crossings at the national frontier. All of which means that Assad is losing his grip.

This kind of cascading failure tends to accelerate. My guess is that it's all going to be over within a week. But that's just a SWAG; I have no other basis for it.

Which made me start thinking: If Assad decides to bag it and run, where does he run to? Turkey certainly is no friend of his, and the Jordanians hate him. There's no safety in Lebanon. The Iraqis don't like him. The idea of him fleeing to Israel made me grin.

For the time being, Russia and China seem to be supporting him -- but that's because he's the Syrian head of state and they want access. If he's out, there's no longer any win for them in helping him. So where does he run?

His best escape would be to run to Iran, but either that means an unauthorized flight across northern Iraq, or it means a very strange and circuitous escape over open water starting with the Med and going, well, damned if I know. This doesn't seem very likely at all. Iran is like Russia; they've been his friend beause he ran Syria. Once he's out, they no longer want to know him.

Ghaddaffi and Mubarek went down with the ship. My bet is that Assad does the same. He won't run; he'll stay and he'll be captured. And either he'll be hung, or he'll face a firing squad.

UPDATE: Of course, there's another possibility: the French might take him.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 03:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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