[dp0622]

This is getting serious folks. It looks like Assad could fall. I was hoping for a much longer drawn out battle between shia and sunni.
any opinions on what happens next? does Iran send in massive troops? does ISIS take the whole country? is it split into pieces?

[PhiloBedo]

Iran is the regional power player. They’ll move into Syria and have a staging area for attacking Israel. And Barry couldn’t be happier.

[House Atreides]

“...any opinions on what happens next? does Iran send in massive troops? does ISIS take the whole country? is it split into pieces?”
****************************************************************************************************
Mass murders,

uncounted rapes,

Christian and other religious minority women & children taken and sold into sexual slavery,

vast numbers of refugees...enabling the exponential strengthening of the Camp of the Saints situation in Europe and providing the raw resources for the Obama regime’s desire to increase the mass immigration of Muslims into America and their dispersal throughout the nation,

Celebration “mission accomplished” parties by the likes of Lindsey Grahamnesty, Juan McCain, Obama operatives and their Muslim Brotherhood compadres,

etc., etc., etc.

And those are just the less horrific things.

[Fungi]

Nothing good will come of this. While his regime is relatively mild compared to his father Hafaz who instructed the military cannons on Homs in 1982 to eradicate the Muslim Brotherhood, (30-40,000 killed), there is no “better” alternative. Witness Libya, Iraq, Algeria, etc—have those nations produced anything stable after their downfall? The problem is the religion. Islam is a false religion based on one man, a false “prophet” who's only intent was to eradicate the Jews and “wrote” a false “holy” book called the Koran. There will never be a solution in the Middle East. Should Assad fall, who will replace him? Another tyrant who rules based on a false religion, a false premise. Nothing will change, only more of the same. There is your answer.

[SVTCobra03]

What happens next is Isiah 17.

[spetznaz]

This is getting serious folks. It looks like Assad could fall. I was hoping for a much longer drawn out battle between shia and sunni. any opinions on what happens next? does Iran send in massive troops? does ISIS take the whole country? is it split into pieces?

Iran is already sending in thousands of troops, but the fact is that the country is gone. The national entity that was called 'Syria' no longer exists on the ground, in much the same manner that 'Iraq' no longer exists. While the split of Iraq is far clearer (Shiite/Iran influenced territory to the East, Kurdish influenced territory to the North, and to the West the eastern-flank of ISIS held territory), for Syria it is more convoluted as there are a number of groups fighting for ground.

However, the clear winner is ISIS, and my opinion of what will happen is that Assad and his forces will retreat to the Mediterranean coast of Syria to the extreme Wast of the country, and they will basically make a last stand there. That is tribal Alawite territory, it is mountainous, and with the sea at their back they have no choice but to fight or die. It will be difficult for ISIS to dislodge them from there, and it is possible that an Alawite land-hold could be established. It is also likely that Iranian support will focus on that last bastion (as well as Damascus, of course).

I know there are some who are happy about the fall of Syria as a prime enemy of Israel (a country I fully support) has been taken off the board, but in my opinion that would be a highly (highly) erroneous view of things. All that has happened is that a government that could have been negotiated with and/or bombed has been replaced with an amorphous entity that cannot be negotiated with and is harder to bomb.

Another way of thinking about this is as follows: after 9/11 the West rightly knew it was imperative to destroy Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The Taliban because this was a group that was running an entire country that was being used as a terrorist base the size of a nation, and Al Qaeda for obvious reasons.

Well, in ISIS you have an organization that has done in less than two years something that Osama thought impossible - conquering and holding vast geography -, are spreading and integrating with other jihadi groups from West Africa to South East Asia, and once they have finished their land grab in the 'easy' countries (by 'easy' I mean the countries that were gift-wrapped for them: Iraq, Libya and Syria), they will turn their attention to the 'next set' (read: Jordan, Saudi Arabia), and of course the West.

But to answer your original question, Syria as a country is gone. You will have:

- a small Alawite/Shia splinter to the extreme West (decades ago there was a push for an Alawite state before the Alawites started ruling Syria);

- A Kurdish splinter to the extreme north (and I see the Kurds in Iraq and Syria someday bringing trouble to Turkey, which has a sizeable Kurdish population);

- a small piece of land controlled by the rebels (non-ISIS affiliated, with some of these rebels being Al-Nusra ...which is the local name that Al Qaeda in Syria is using);

- and finally over half the country controlled by ISIS.

Let me close by saying this - the next time a country considers 'regime change,' whether it is removing Saddam, Qaddafi or Assad, it is imperative to ascertain that there is a viable replacement available to fill the vacuum. If there is none, then the ONLY course of action is the Gulf War One (Senior Bush/Colin Powell) doctrine of smiting the heck out of the enemy, but leaving him and his systems in place.