President Assad greeting crowds in Damascus

Nicholas Noe on “the dangerous myth of the inevitable collapse” of the Syrian regime:

Washington and others will start to have to come to term with the poverty of the discourse which they almost immediately launched – that this regime will inevitablly (and some suggested effortlessly and/or with a manageable level of bloodshed) collapse.

I don’t usually see eye-to-eye with Noe, but he’s making a point here that we all should think about. The common wisdom and the undertone of most coverage of the events in Syria is that the regime is going to collapse sooner than later. How true is that?

There are many reasons why a sense of inevitability has spread:

• Crippling Economic and political sanctions on Syria that hit vital sectors of the economy. The argument is that the Syrian bourgeois will eventually abandon the regime because they start to feel the pinch.
• Constant media coverage of an unrest that seems to be growing by the day and an army that keeps shedding defectors.
• Social proof: Many world leaders are saying that the regime will fall, including some Lebanese leaders who seemed to have staked their entire political careers on it

But if we look closer, there are reasons why the believers in inevitability should pause and take stock:

• It might take years before the economic sanctions really start to bite
• The opposition in Syria is finding it difficult to convince key power brokers that they are united and are a viable alternative to the regime.
• Some previously combative regional leaders (Qatar and Turkey) have noticeably toned down their criticism of the regime
• The Arab league abandoned its brief stint as fire-breathing monster and returned to its cozy paper tiger roots
• Fatigue with media coverage of events in Syria: If the news is the same every day, people start losing interest

The thing about inevitability is that it is self fulfilling. A real sense of inevitability pushes people to leave a sinking ship and change sides. It allows soldiers to defect with confidence, political opponents to turn up their criticism and news reporters to be lax with their fact-checking. But any step back from inevitability is also dangerous, because it sends people scrambling back to the safety of cowardice.

Am I saying that the Syrian revolution will join the green revolution of Iran in the club of revolts that were crushed by ruthless regimes?

Not at all. Things might turn in any direction and Libya was a great example. At one point during the Libyan revolution, there was a pervading sense of foreboding and resignation among commentators that Gaddafi is winning. In less than a few days however, the entire picture was flipped on its head and Tripoli fell in one day. This could very well happen in Syria too.

Update: Make sure you read these two articles by Michael Young and Tony Badran on why things with Assad are so screwed up at this point.