Is Bashar al-Assad Willing To Kill Own Troops To Hold Power In Syria?

The United States has always said that Bashar al-Assad has to leave Syria and transfer power to someone else in order for the Syrian Civil War to end.

The reasons are clear. Bashar al-Assad has killed his own people, in massive numbers, starting when the Arab Spring spread through the region and Syrians began to revolt, calling for Assad to leave as written about in CBS News.

The report shows that at the time in March of 2011 when the protests were starting, no one was calling for the ouster of Bashar al-Assad but were asking for reforms. Still, the security forces opened fire apparently when they tried to burn down a statue of Hafez al-Assad, his father.

Bashar al-Assad has also sent troops to massacre families by the hundreds in Darayya. Darayya is known for being one of the first towns to rise up against him since the beginning, with battles against rebels happening there. There are still reports of barrel bombs dropping down on those civilians regularly.

Those are examples of what he continued to do and during a recent briefing over a ceasefire agreement, which is mentioned in a more recent article by the Inquisitr, the White House press secretary acknowledged that this was the case, as published on the White House site.

“They [Assad regime] continued to provoke and attack opposition forces and, in some cases, innocent civilians. And that wasn’t some kind of secret strategy that was employed by the Assad regime; they were pretty bold about announcing that they were going to go and bomb hospitals, targeting civilians, until they could get some of these groups to surrender.”

But it’s been six years now since the war started, and towns and cities across Syria are left in ruins. Not to say that extremist groups haven’t gone in to do their own damage before Russia came in, and as the Inquisitr has said, have committed more atrocities than ISIS has.

The recent reports of the threat to the ceasefire agreement are just another assurance that Bashar al-Assad is there to stay, and that prying him to step down from power is beyond impossible.

Another piece published by the Inquisitr looks at the possibility that Russia has intentionally created a situation that guarantees Bashar al-Assad is there to stay.

But it also suggests briefly: what if Bashar al-Assad made a different agreement with the Russians over the ceasefire to sacrifice his own forces accidentally attacked by the U.S. to force the U.S. to violate the agreement in order to stay in power?

Again, with the amount of blood-letting that has taken place there, why wouldn’t sacrificing a large batch of troops be out of line? Certainly, Russia has no problem causing endless casualties, as there is already mounting evidence against Russia of letting their oligarchs getting their way and a Russian president who has been president and prime minister twice. The latest election ensures him a fourth term and the assassinations of those opposed to Putin, as well as the threat to neighboring NATO countries by a KGB-raised dictator.

So Russians can vote Iron Curtain Commie Revival or keep KGB fanatic and happy hunting, deranged despot Putin in… https://t.co/3JESa8xKKZ

— Sister Company (@sistercompany) September 18, 2016

In another article, the threat to the West is explained with the rising powers of China and Russia where it’s reported that Chinese leaders have met with leaders in the Syrian regime to negotiate providing assistance as well.

If it isn’t enough for Russia to be there to prop up Bashar al-Assad, then China would be the next power to also present demanding ultimatums and take control from the United States.

Never mind the fear of regional power-grabs but more and more, the goal to remove Bashar al-Assad from power is being erased.

Should the U.S. continue to make that effort, modestly and humbly trying to be the “good guy” in the area? Or is it time for the U.S. to muscle its way through the situation with strong declarations and threats of war?

Just how much more of the complete destruction of the country is Bashar al-Assad willing to deliver to stay in power?

In the past, the U.S. has been quick to go after dictators. Prior to Qaddafi, it was Saddam Hussein under George Bush. But much like the Taliban, ousting Bashar al-Assad is a long-term ordeal and it’s testing the limits of, at the very least, the United States.

In another article by the Inquisitr, the view of President Obama arming the rebels is viewed as the most the United States can do to try to topple the regime, but despite the outrage of arming them at all, it was very brief.

Now as the president leaves office, the next one will have to try and reinforce the message that Assad will have to go. And it will be up to them as to how they’re going to present that message, only limited by their own endurance. At this point, it’s their endurance that will have to outlast that of Bashar al-Assad.

[Featured Image by Valentina Petrov/Shutterstock]