BEIRUT — A year into the Syrian uprising, it was not the opposition but the government of Bashar Assad that made a point Thursday of conspicuously marking the anniversary.
The raucous pro-Assad rallies Thursday in the streets of Damascus and other Syrian cities were the latest triumphant signal from a government widely described as besieged or doomed.
While four other Arab autocrats have fallen from power in the past 14 months, the tenacious Assad has managed to hold on — despite a raging revolt that has swept large swaths of the nation and seen armed rebels occupy extensive territory, if temporarily.
The overwhelming sense of fear that long blunted dissent in Syria has been dismantled, but Assad remains defiant.
Behind the sense of triumph evident Thursday on the streets of Damascus were recent battlefield victories in the provinces of Idlib and Homs, where government troops were able to drive out outgunned rebels who had for months occupied “liberated” territory. In the end, rebels’ rifles and homemade bombs were no match for the government’s tanks and artillery.
“Even one bullet from a Kalashnikov was responded with by a tank shell,” said Mazen Arja, an opposition media activist in Idlib. “If we had RPGs, we wouldn’t have left. We could have finished off the tanks.”
Having once anticipated that Assad would make an expeditious exit, officials from Washington and other Western capitals now concede that he could cling to power for quite some time.
The Assad government “still has a strong grip” on its security apparatus and can be expected to fight until the end, said one U.S. official who asked not to be identified.
“These guys know there’s no way out, and there’s almost nothing they won’t do,” said the U.S. official.
The opposition’s evolution from a protest movement to an armed rebellion has posed strong challenges for the security forces, about 2,000 of whom have been killed in the fighting, But some say the increasingly violent nature of opposition forces has alienated middle-class Syrians and others fearful of Iraq-style chaos and sectarian violence should Assad fall.
A Western diplomat close to the issue, who could not be named because he was not authorized to talk publicly about the matter, said his government’s expectation is that “Assad might last for a quite a while. We don’t know what the tipping point might be.”
Yet even if things may be looking better for Assad now than a few weeks ago — when armed rebels were literally at the door steps of Damascus — the long-term outlook for his government’s survival remains bleak, many experts say. Assad’s power is steadily eroding amid a crumbling economy, diplomatic isolation and a steady insurgency now schooled in sabotage and roadside bombs, they say.
“He could be around, but extremely weakened,” said Emile Hokayem, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain. “You can’t see it in simple black-and-white terms.”
New fractures within the already deeply divided opposition haven’t helped the anti-Assad cause. The Syrian National Council, the best-known opposition umbrella group, has suffered several major defections this week.
In resigning from the group, eminent dissident Haitham Maleh labeled the council autocratic, not unlike Syria’s long-dominant ruling Baath Party, he said.
“They don’t want to play the democracy side,” Maleh said of the council.
But, on the ground, Assad does face an opposition unified in one goal — overthrowing his rule.
And, while they may be outgunned now, the prospect of weapons from Saudi Arabia and Qatar lies just over the horizon. Both nations have publicly backed arming the rebellion, though opposition officials and rebels inside Syria say it has yet to happen. Many observers believe that the gulf nations will ultimately bankroll the rebel cause.
