So pathetic:

Those are Assad supporters that remain in Aleppo. They are crying and weeping on a TV station that belongs to Assad because their area has been shelled by rebels. They are calling on Assad to save them from the rebels.

There are more than one stupidity in this clip:

1. They are calling on Assad to intervene, but Assad actually does far worse shelling against civilians than what is apparent in this clip. I do not know what kind of bombs were used in this shelling, but I am certain that they are nothing in comparison to Assad’s bombs.

When Assad attacks an area the entire area becomes rubble. He does not care about civilians in the area. He does not even care about his supporters in the area. He just kills indiscriminately. Anybody with a brain should have understood from the beginning that Assad’s ‘method’ cannot end the rebellion, but those Assad supporters still until now call on Assad to use even more brutality against rebel areas. They think that the rebellion has not ended because Assad has not been brutal enough!

2. They are still calling on Assad to save them, as if he can!

Assad cannot retake Aleppo. It is doubtful whether he can even lay siege to it.

Assad (or rather his Iranian masters) understood early that Aleppo cannot be defended. In 2012 they stopped sending supplies to the city, but they kept bombing it. It seems that their goal at that time was to empty the city of its inhabitants. They were fearful that the city would become a ‘second Benghazi,’ i.e. a base for a foreign intervention against Assad. That is apparently the reason for why they went crazy and destroyed the city (at that time Assad bombed even areas under his control in Aleppo, like the area of Aleppo University). When they realized later that there would be no foreign intervention they changed their policy and started to supply and secure the parts of the city which the rebels could not take.

Now their ambitions have grown. Since they are confident that there would be no foreign intervention no matter what they do, they are planning to besiege the city. If that succeeds, it will cause many of the remaining inhabitants to leave the city. Most of them will head to Turkey as refugees.

Even if Assad and Iran manage somehow to retake Aleppo, that will not end the violence against Assad’s supporters. If anything, that will make the rebels increase their attacks against civilians out of despair.

In 1948 the Israelis drove most of the Palestinians out of Palestine and turned them into refugees, but the Palestinians have since that time killed many Israelis, mostly civilians. Similarly, in 2003 the US toppled the Saddam regime, but Saddam’s supporters managed after that to kill so many people in Iraq, mostly Shia civilians.

The rebellion in Syria cannot be defeated militarily. If the rebels become desperate, they will certainly turn to terrorism against Assad’s supporters. They will not give up this struggle and they will not accept Assad’s rule. (Actually their real problem is not with Assad but with the Alawis. The essence of this struggle is not political but religious/sectarian, despite what the warring parties say.)

Assad’s supporters in Aleppo are demanding things that can only increase their misery. More brutality against the rebels and defeating the rebels will only increase attacks against those Assad supporters.

I do not think that Assad’s supporters in Aleppo are stupid. They are just desperate. They have nobody else to turn to other than Assad. If they find an alternative they will certainly embrace it.

The rebels cannot be an alternative to Assad. Those rebels are religious fanatics who think that they are in jihad against Alawis and Shia. Many people in Aleppo prefer to stay under Assad’s rule than to fall in the hands of those rebels.

But the Kurdish rebels are an exception. The Kurdish rebels are not pro-democracy (they are communists), but they have the advantage of being secular and tolerant. They have proven in the areas under their control that they are tolerant of all religions and ethnicities. They also seem to be engaged in less human rights violations than Assad and the other factions. (The number 1 violator of human rights in Syria is Assad and Iran, next comes ISIS, then the rebels supported by Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and finally the Kurdish rebels supported by the US.)

If the Kurdish rebels (and their Arab allies) manage somehow to reach Aleppo, I am pretty sure that many of Assad’s supporters in Aleppo will defect and support the Kurds and their allies. This nice scenario faces one big hurdle: Turkey.