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Source: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/27/alawistan?page=0,0
Alawistan
(Foreign Policy) Tony Badran - The Syrian regime has been setting the stage for a retreat to Syria's coastal mountains, the traditional homeland of the Assads' Alawite sect, for months now. Sooner or later, Assad will abandon Damascus. Assad has moved to secure all natural access points leading to this Alawite redoubt. He also began to clear hostile Sunni pockets within the enclave and to create a buffer zone in the plain that separates the coastal mountains from the interior. This was the calculus behind the string of mass killings in villages like al-Houla, Taldou, al-Haffeh, and Tremseh - all Sunni population centers either inside or on the eastern frontier of the Alawite enclave in the central plain. In Damascus, the regime does not possess a demographic reservoir of loyal Alawite communities. It has responded to this problem by ringing the capital with military bases stocked with loyal Alawite troops to control the main communication routes out of the city. Some will argue that an Alawite enclave is unviable in the long-term, but Assad has an insurance policy - a large stockpile of chemical weapons. These weapons are his last remaining and most formidable deterrent against his Sunni foes, and precious leverage to guarantee the quiescence of the outside world. The writer is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.