West views Assad as 'best-case scenario' for Syria

“Bashar al-Assad must go,” the West kept saying it over and over. Not so long ago, US Secretary of State John Kerry declared that no matter how well Syria’s chemical disarmament proceeded, Assad would have to resign anyway because he had lost legitimacy.

But the latest meeting of the Friends of Syria in London marked a sharp turnaround after Western countries signaled that they no longer considered Assad’s resignation a desired result and wouldn’t mind if he ran for the presidency in the future election.

Sergei Demidenko, a research fellow at the Institute of Strategic Assessments and Analysis, looks into the matter.

“It is now clear to everyone that Bashar al-Assad has the backing of a greater part of the population, that the opposition is dominated by radical Islamists, which particularly frightens the West, that the secular opposition is weak and incompetent and if the Assad regime falls, nothing would prevent the Islamists from seizing power. Those are the circumstances that prompted the West to change its attitude. What has long been mulled in diplomatic and political circles behind closed doors is now becoming an official stance,” he said.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden echoed in his speech at a Washington conference against terrorism that Assad’s victory over the opposition would be the best-case scenario both for Syria and the entire Middle East, whereas Assad’s defeat would plunge Syria into a protracted regional conflict and cause the country to split.

Commenting on Hayden’s statement, Fyodor Lukyanov, chief editor of the Russia in Global Politics magazine, remarked: “All sober-minded US experts now agree that any scenario in which the opposition wins will be worse than everything else. Whatever Assad is like, he kept Syria stable. If he is allowed to win, the problem could at least be postponed for a while… The United States’ reluctance to engage in any sort of conflict in the Middle East has increased exponentially since September. Hayden’s statement indicates that it’s no longer a marginal viewpoint.”

A change of mood in the Arab world has also had its effect. Qatar has visibly cooled to the idea of arming Syrian militants. Saudi Arabia, though remaining their key sponsor, is losing control over the situation.

“Riyadh supports the Jabhat an-Nusra organization. Secretary General of Saudi Arabia’s National Security Council Bandar bin Sultan is personally supervising it. But there is another organization in Syria, which is as strong as Jabhat an-Nusra and which swore allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. In other words, Saudi Arabia is losing influence with Islamist structures,” Semyon Bagdasarov, a prominent Russian orientalist, told the Voice of Russia.

The West’s softening towards Assad raises hope that the upcoming Geneva-2 conference on Syria will produce solutions that would suit all parties concerned.

Read more:

- Assad must stay and run for reelection – Western diplomats

- US ambassador says Syria's biggest rebel alliance rejects talks

- Syria Kurds aim to end dispute ahead of peace talks

- Arab Spring three years later: winter is coming/hope floats