The strategy of Assad

In the overview of the facts involving the growing power of the caliphate, should not be forgotten the role and strategy of Assad. After the first peaceful protests in Syria, followed the Arab Spring, the response from Damascus was an unprecedented crackdown capable of triggering a rebellion, which has generated one of the conflicts, still in progress, one of the longest and bloodiest of the Middle East. The Gulf countries have funded an anti Iran, the Sunni movements that gave birth to the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant. Westerners, who have not fully understood the situation did not support a decisive rebel groups lay clearly inspired by democratic and in this way made ​​it possible, in an indirect way, the growth of fundamentalist movements. This analysis, very simple, but essential, is the one that is used by many analysts to explain why they have allowed the caliphate to fill the power vacuum in the country of Iraq and become, at present, the most feared adversary of the West. In fact in this discussion is underestimated or not even mentioned the role of Assad, who has operated the fundamentalist Sunnis to maintain control of Damascus, to be the lesser evil for the United States in the fight against the Islamic state into account. The terrorists who have flowed into Syria from foreign countries have passed from the Syrian capital constantly monitored by the police forces of Assad, but was allowed to reach Iraq to fight in those areas, while in the regular army of Damascus, except some exceptions focused on the democratic opposition. The growth of the Caliphate shifted international attention from the Syrian war in Iraq that, thanks to the major aspects of media and the political implications, which were to judge the work of the long American occupation of Iraq, its abandonment and the consequences thereof. A focus on the action of the army of the Islamic state were also the brutal persecution against the followers of different faiths from Islam Sunni and ferocity shown against defenseless people. All this has allowed Assad to settle their position of power and be a potential ally of the United States for the defeat of the caliphate. The action Syrian aviation has made limited raid against the fundamentalists who threatened the positions of Damascus, but they have done a glimpse of how air power is necessary to stop the advance of Muslim extremists, including with regard to the Syrian front . From the military point of view for Washington to have a support also from the western part of the area occupied by the men of the caliphate means tighten two sides and increase the chances of victory; However, the political price to be paid in Damascus could be enormous, not to mention what would be the reliability of a potential ally as Assad. On the other hand, the function of the dictator of Damascus appears to be essential also in terms of security of Israel, which, however, has never hidden his disfavor for a change of leadership in Syria, thanks to the status quo established by the Syrian president. For the United States, however, it comes to dealing with the consequences of yet another error of assessment of the impact of a single situation, Syria in fact, on a broader perspective: the Middle East, the Gulf monarchies, Iran and Turkey. Washington is faced with a dilemma that involves mistakes whatever is decided. The impact on the international scene for a possible sort of rehab Assad, in a view to containing the caliphate, implies the prohibition of any future solution hostile to the Syrian regime, leaving the government of the country a dictatorship, also allied with Putin's Russia. Not have the military position of Assad means not having a key strategic tactical weapon against the caliphate, which implies the possibility of a fall of Damascus in favor of the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. All of these factors are well known to Assad, who relies on the fact of being considered the lesser evil; thing that actually, in the present state of things, it appears to be. This result condenses the whole strategy of Damascus that an opponent is likely to become an ally, which will have many influences on the internal debate in the USA, but not limited to, think of the developments that such a decision might have with the countries of the Gulf , with whom relations are not the best.