Obama's Crumbling Syria Facade

In March of this year, Robert Ford offered three reasons for why rescuing Syria was hopeless. The first, he said, was that the opposition to Bashar al-Assad was in a state of chauvinistic disarray. “First and foremost,” Ford told the New York Times, the rebels have “been very unsuccessful at explaining an agenda that would not threaten the communities that are the pillars of support for the regime, first and foremost the Alawite community.” (The repetition here of that wan expression “first and foremost” hinted at either pre-scripting or a nervous disposition, that of someone trying too hard.) True, Russia and Iran have helped (this was reason number two), but it was the opposition’s failure to offer up a multicultural “agenda” to the Alawites, Ford maintained, that allowed the regime (here came number three) a “certain unity and coherence, which is lacking on the opposition side.” First and foremost.