USA Today: In Syria, what happens if Assad defeats insurgents?
By Truman Project Staff | 9.24.12
Truman Fellow Lionel Beehner in USA Today
The United Nations has accused the Syrian government of employing indiscriminate force against civilians, particularly in the battleground cities of Aleppo, Homs and Damascus. Some Western policymakers have noted that this could be the desperate tactic of a regime in its final throes. But this kind of indiscriminate force has defeated insurgencies before. Which raises the question: Can Bashar Assad succeed?
Most sectarian civil wars, after all, end in stalemate or are won by the government. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein squashed a Shia uprising in the early 1990s, and the Algerian regime put down an Islamist insurrection in the 1990s. And in Syria itself, the scorched-earth operation of Assad’s father against the Muslim Brotherhood pacified Hama in 1982.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Truman National Security Project or Educational Institute.
