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The Battle for Aleppo, Syria's Stalingrad, Ends

(New Yorker) Robin Wright - The Battle of Aleppo, which since 2012 has pitted the despotic government of President Bashar al-Assad against an array of disorganized opposition rebels, now appears to be over. Much of the famed city, the largest in Syria, has already been destroyed. The Old City has been gutted. The fall of Aleppo is the biggest victory for Assad in the grisly six-year war, which has killed more than 400,000 people and left more than half of Syria's population, originally 22 million, dependent on international aid for daily survival. The rebel groups were outnumbered and outgunned by a government with airpower - and Russian, Iranian, and Lebanese Shiite forces to back it up. The loss of Aleppo is, in turn, a huge setback for the West, Turkey, and the Gulf monarchies, which supported several rebel factions with arms, training, or funds. In the end, Russia managed to make a deal - one that excluded the U.S. - to allow the last civilians to leave. This does not end the war. A variety of rebel groups including the most potent al-Qaeda branch, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, still hold Idlib Province in the northwest. Assad and his foreign backers are likely to try to win it back next. It may prove harder than Aleppo. Assad's army surrounded Aleppo and cut off its roads to Turkey, which had allowed the rebels to resupply and rearm. It will be much more difficult to do that in Idlib, on the Turkish border. If President-elect Trump dramatically shifts course and agrees to terms that favor Russia and keep Assad in power, he risks angering allies or endangering long-standing partnerships - including with Turkey and the Gulf monarchies - with their own interests in Syria. "Without a political transition within Syria, the fighting won't stop," a U.S. official told me Monday. "And, without a political transition, there's no way we can finish off the Islamic State."
2016-12-16 00:00:00
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