The noose around President Bashar al-Assad’s neck tightened still further yesterday with the defection of a senior security official. By joining Syria’s rebels, General Abdulaziz al-Shalal, formerly commander of the military police force, showed once again that key figures near the apex of the regime view Mr Assad’s downfall as inevitable.
Sadly, inevitable does not mean imminent. General Shalal is the latest in a long line of defectors, ranging from the prime minister to perhaps a dozen generals and the chief spokesman of the foreign ministry. Mr Assad has airily dismissed this exodus as a “cleansing” of the faint-hearted who lack the stomach for the fight. This show of nonchalance is repulsive given that his obdurate struggle to cling to power has claimed at least 40,000 lives and brought almost two years of conflict to Syria.
As a new year approaches, bringing with it the second anniversary of the onset of the insurrection, Mr Assad might care to reflect that at the dawn of 2012, he was in command of both Damascus and Aleppo and much of the northern border with Turkey. Today, by contrast, this amoral dictator has been reduced to fighting for mastery of the two biggest cities, while his enemies run most of rural Syria.
If he retains any grasp of reality, he must know that his options are evaporating. By one well-informed estimate, Syria’s central bank has only $3 or $4 billion left, a reserve that is being depleted by around $1 billion a month. Soon, Mr Assad may be forced to rely on Iran, his closest ally, to pay his army and buy his weapons.
The best hope would be the departure of this flailing despot to whichever country might still be willing to offer asylum. Tragically, a fight to the finish remains more likely.
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