Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
nor rebels can win the war in Syria.
That's what Mussolini's partisans used to say toward the end. He's just admitting that his side can't win. The other side, well, that's up to them, isn't it?
Sharaa, a Sunni Moslem in a power structure dominated by Assad's Alawite minority, has rarely appeared in public since the revolt erupted in March 2011.
"Hey, we got lotsa stuff in the Fuehrerbunker. We're comfy. Shucks, we even have air conditioning!"
The newspaper, al-Akhbar, released only limited excerpts on Sunday from the interview appearing in Monday's edition, and it was far from clear that Sharaa's comments represented the view of the government.
"Well, obviously they still think they can win. They haven't decamped yet, have they?"
But he is still the most prominent figure to say in public that the crackdown will not win. The paper, which generally takes a pro-Assad line, said Sharaa had been speaking in Damascus.
...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat...
In the first phase of the 21-month-old civil war, which has claimed at least 40,000 lives, Damascus was distant from the fighting.Now it's not.
Rebels have now brought the war to the capital, without succeeding in delivering a fatal blow to the government.
They've only got to "deliver a fatal blow" once. The regime has to fight them off every time.
But nor has Assad found the military muscle to oust his opponents from the city.
Which means he's a goner. If he can't thump them when they're holding territory he's lost. Q, as they say, ED.
In Gay Paree, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of La Belle France, one of the major powers most insistent that Assad has lost his legitimacy, told RFI radio: "I think the end is nearing for Bashir al-Assad."
He's gonna have one of those Najibullah weekends if he doesn't head for Novosibirsk soon.