Realpolitik

SecState Kerry is in Geneva today to discuss the Russian suggestion that Syria voluntarily give up her stores of poison gas, rather than be plied with incendiary devices by the US. Assad asserts that his compliance is because of Russia, and not US threats:

"Syria is placing its chemical weapons under international control because of Russia. The U.S. threats did not influence the decision," Interfax quoted him as telling Russia's state-run Rossiya-24 television channel. 

A version of the Russian plan that leaked to the newspaper Kommersant described four stages:Syria would join the world body that enforces a chemical weapons ban, declare production and storage sites, invite inspectors, and then decide with the inspectors how and by whom stockpiles would be destroyed.

Reuters

The lesser of two evils

(Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday he was confident of victory against rebels in a devastating 28-month-old civil war that has
killed more than 100,000 people and sent nearly two million fleeing abroad.

Insurgents have seized large swathes of territory, but Assad's forces have staged a counter-offensive in recent weeks, pushing them back from around the capital Damascus and retaking several towns near the border with Lebanon.

This July 23, 2010 article reports the granting of amnesty to  rebelling Syrians.

(snip) Assad has framed the revolt against four decades of his family's rule as a foreign-backed conspiracy fought by Islamist "terrorists." When pro-democracy protests started in March 2011, a military crackdown eventually led to an armed insurrection.

At the time the civil war broke out, March 2011, around 60% of the Syrian population were Sunnis Arabs living in dire poverty. (Sunni Kurds make up about 10-15% of the Sunni contingent.) I do not doubt there was foreign influence contributing to the uprising, from Westerners or Jihadis or both.

(snip) The struggle in Syria has become markedly sectarian,broadly pitting majority Sunni Muslim rebels and against Assad's minority Alawite sect, which is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

The disenfranchised Sunnis were pitted against not only Assad and the Alawite sect, but also the Shi'ites,  Sunnis, Christians,  and Jews of the upper class, i.e., a cosmopolitan elite. They are located, largely on the western edge of Syria, between Damascus, to the south, and Aleppo to the north.

(snip) He has also received solid support from Shi'ite regional powerhouse Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and longtime ally Russia, while his fragmented foes have received little military aid from their Western backers wary of the growing presence of hardline Islamist rebel groups, some of them linked to al Qaeda.

 I am pro-Assad in the sense that I do not wish to see Islamists ethnically cleanse Syria of Shi'ites, Alawites, Christians and Jews, turning her into another Muslim Brotherhood controlled state. If the Syrian rebels and Assad come to the negotiating table, I assume that the poverty of the 60% Sunni Arabs will be addressed and hopefully lessened, eventually.