Syria: Assad isn’t winning and rebels aren’t losing

Anti-tank guided missiles seized by rebels in Qalamoun

Two body blows to the Syrian army this week dented incessant claims Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is winning the war.

He isn’t. And the armed opposition is simply not losing.

Between them, the town of Qusayr and the neighborhood of Khalidiya in Homs city – recaptured by the regime in the past two months -- don’t make up even 0.01 percent of Syria’s territory.

Assad can’t be winning the war if it takes his army – enhanced by Vladimir Putin’s arms supplies, Barack Obama’s perfidy and the complicity of Iraq’s Nouri al-Maliki, Iran’s Ali Khamenei and Lebanon’s Hassan Nasrallah -- over two years to “retake” 0.01 percent of so-called “strategic” territory.

Rebels battling Assad's army captured five depots of Konkurs, Kornet and Milan anti-tank guided missiles, arms and ammunition in the Qalamoun area on the doorstep of Damascus early on Saturday.

The massive explosions in Wadi Dahab near Homs 

Two days earlier, the rebels sent a wave of rockets slamming into regime strongholds in the Wadi Dahab area of Homs, triggering a succession of massive explosions in a weapons depot that killed at least 40 people and wounded some 120. The rocket attack sent a massive ball of fire and a black mushroom cloud into the sky and caused widespread damage and panic among residents, many of who are Assad supporters.

Egyptian military and strategy expert Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Safwat el-Zayyat last night gave an enlightening news analysis of the two body blows to the regime.

Speaking live to Aljazeera TV anchorwoman Khadija Bengana, he said:

The implications of the rebel attacks on the weapons depots in Qalamoun and Homs are very significant.

The Qalamoun area, chiefly the village of Baqaa, where the rebels overran the depots, is teeming with regime forces.

It’s the nerve center of the Syrian army’s famed 3^rd Armored Division, which is renowned for its blind loyalty to the regime and is tasked with shielding the northern gateway to Damascus.

Legitimate questions need answering.

Why? Because:

§ The 5^th Armored Division, which is only 10 kilometers away from the scene, failed to send reserves to protect the site

§ The depots are close to the surface-to-surface missile brigade raining Scuds on northern Syria

§ The site is in the vicinity of al-Nasiriyah military airbase.

The rebels’ raid must have lasted several hours. Where were the reserve and mechanized units during that time?

Is this a sign that regime forces are extremely exhausted, overstretched and unable to secure the area between Homs and Damascus?

What if we also factored in the rebels’ rocket attack on the army’s weapons depot in Wadi Dahab, southeast of Homs city?

Does all this show the armed opposition is now privy to military intelligence information from within the regime?

The 3^rd Armored Division is one of the strongest in the army. It is not a simple matter for the rebels to storm the five depots under its nose and walk away with the booty in their own time.

The Kornet anti-tank guided missiles seized by the rebels -- of the type used by Hezbollah against Israeli forces in summer 2006 -- are superior to the Konkurs type they have been using lately.

The 3^rd Armored Division’s evident vulnerability could now embolden the armed opposition to go one step further, which is to cut off and win control of the highway between Homs and Damascus. They could even target Qusayr for that matter. Who knows where they will be heading next!

The army and allied militias are now busy fighting for the suburbs – in Qaboun, Jobar and Barza.

The armed opposition, for its part, has put Eastern Ghouta on the back burner and turned westward to knock at the door of Abbasid Square in central Damascus.

The regime is clearly lacking foot soldiers and unable to maneuver on the ground. It is mostly using heavy artillery, airpower and missile strikes.

But fighting without moving ground forces to occupy, or control, or in one way or another liberate areas, towns, townships, villages or a neighborhood raises many question marks (about Assad winning the war).

After Khalidiya, is Assad winning the Syria war?

Dramatic images of destruction in Khalidiya

Hyped media reports that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad is winning the Syria war are misplaced, according to Egyptian military and strategy expert Safwat el-Zayyat.

The reports follow the fall of Khalidiya, a neighborhood in Homs city, to Syrian government forces backed by Shiite militiamen from Lebanon, Iran and Iraq.

Seven weeks earlier, these combined forces retook Qusayr, a town some 35 kilometers from Homs city on Syria’s border with Lebanon.

Zayyat said in his live, four-minute military news analysis for Aljazeera TV channel last night:

The regime is not in a position to contend with two battlefronts at the same time.

After retaking Qusayr (on June 5), the regime turned swiftly to Aleppo.

News agencies started saying regime and Hezbollah forces were knocking on Aleppo city’s door and preparing to overrun the nearby villages of Nubul and Zahra.

Four days later, we saw regime and Hezbollah forces refocusing on Homs, instead.

Homs city has been under siege for 442 days.

It took the regime 442 days to forces its way into just one of the city’s numerous neighborhoods – namely, Khalidiya.

I believe the armed opposition’s unified command gives priority to the attrition war.

For now, it is concentrating on the Aleppo and Deraa fronts.

More thrilling perhaps is the Damascus front, where the armed opposition seems to have decided to switch its main thrust from Eastern Ghouta to try and reach Abbasid Square, (a landmark plaza) in central Damascus.

Also, three days ago, regime forces were set to swoop on Qaboun (a neighborhood of Damascus held by the rebels).

Suddenly, regime forces pulled back from around Qaboun and Jobar and started evacuating citizens from the Qassaa, Ghassani, Qusur, Fares el-Khoury and al-Tijari areas of Damascus to safer neighborhoods in the capital, including Muhajereen and Ruknuddin.

The closer the armed opposition gets to the center of Damascus, the less likely the regime’s recourse to carpet shelling and bombing of the capital’s rebel-held areas.  

On the Aleppo province front in northern Syria, the armed opposition captured the key town of Khan al-Asal six days ago.

They have since seized Dhahret Abd Rabbo and are no more than 200 meters away from the Air Force Intelligence building there.

Dhahret Abd Rabbo will allow the armed opposition to control the Aleppo-Aintab motorway, which links them to Aleppo city, Nubul, Zahra and Minnigh all the way to the border crossing (with Turkey) at Bab al-Salam.

The opposition’s advances in Deraa province are even more spectacular.

The rebels now hold the major towns of Nawa, Inkhil and Jassem there.

The entire city of Idlib will come under their control once they flush out regime forces from the neighborhood of Manshiyeh.

Assad MiG bombs world heritage site

A Syrian regime MiG has bombed the Crac des Chevaliers, damaging a tower of one of the best-preserved crusader castles in existence.

Several videos posted online Saturday showed at least one airstrike on Friday against the castle in central Homs province, where fighting is raging between government troops and rebel forces.

The footage shows a huge blast, as a tower of the fortress, which is built on a hill, takes a direct hit, sending a plume of smoke and dust into the sky.

A separate video filmed inside the castle shows some of the damage caused by the airstrike, including a gaping hole in the ceiling and a mound of debris and heavy stones under the open roof.

Crac des Chevaliers along with the adjoining Qal’at Salah ed-Din (Saladin Citadel), is considered a crown jewel of the Middle East and one of the world’s best-preserved crusader castles. Built by the Knights Hospitaller as one of a string of fortresses during the crusades, Crac des Chevaliers was described by Lawrence of Arabia as the “best-preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world.”

Dominating their surrounding landscapes, the two castles of Crac des Chevaliers and Qal'at Salah Ed-Din are outstanding examples of fortified architecture relating to the Crusader period.

UNESCO says their quality of construction and the survival of historical stratigraphy demonstrate the interchange of defensive technology through features of each phase of military occupation.

Strategically placed at the entrance to the Homs Gap, the Crac des Chevaliers is about an hour’s drive from Homs city.

“The very reason why the castle was built, its vantage point, is the reason why it is again under attack,” Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, tells The Daily Telegraph.

“Nothing is sacred in Syria, not mosques, churches or ancient sites. Arguably the Crac is the jewel in the crown and is a vital ingredient in Syria’s economic future when it will need to restart its valuable tourism industry.”

The fort was placed on the UNESCO world heritage list in 2006, and is one of six designated sites in Syria that as recently as 2010 helped attract 8.5 million visitors.

Among Syria’s other UNESCO-listed world heritage sites, the Great Mosque of Aleppo and the ancient Roman ruins of Palmyra have also been damaged by the 28-month-old conflict.

One report from Palmyra said soldiers were removing the stones from the ruins to build defenses.

Fighting has also destroyed the ancient souk of Aleppo and the 5,000-year-old Temple of the Storm God beneath the city’s ramparts.

Rebel-held areas of Homs city have been under intense assault from government forces since June 28, and UN officials said in a joint statement on Friday that they are "extremely alarmed by the escalating violence" in Homs and Aleppo.

Homs craves a cucumber for Ramadan

The four Homs video stars

The Syrian army, backed up by fighters from Iran’s Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, is trying to retake several rebel-held districts in the central city of Homs.

The Khalidiya and Old City neighborhoods of Homs have been under army siege for nearly 450 days and since late June have come under steady shell and rocket fire as well as airstrikes in a withering offensive by the regime.

Last week, Russia blocked the draft text of a UN Security Council declaration of “grave concern about the estimated 2,500 civilians trapped in Homs as a result of the recent heavy fighting.”

This week, the reputed UK-based watchdog known as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights warned that civilians and rebels caught in a small segment of the city, covering barely two square kilometers in the center, are dying for want of medical equipment to treat the injured.

Yesterday, to mark the first day of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Alarabiya TV news channel aired a heart-rending video clip of one minute and 22 seconds in which a mother and three randomly chosen children speak of the protracted shortage of food in their Homs district.

Here is what they say in Arabic in the video below:

The mother: It’s the first day of Ramadan. Like all the other days, Praise be to Allah, our iftar meal will consist of soup, burghul and mujaddara with some brown bread. There isn’t much else, Praise be to Allah…

First boy: I miss eggs, vegetables, tomatoes, potatoes, and an eggplant.

Second boy: I crave a cucumber only – one cucumber and a tomato. May Allah deny him (Assad) of His help. He (Assad) deprived us of everything.

Little girl: Potato!

Homs, like Qusayr, gets a mean Russian blow

Map by the Institute for the Study of War

Russia five weeks ago blocked the draft text of a UN Security Council declaration of alarm over the blockade of Qusayr (see my June 2 post).

Within days, the town close to the Syrian-Lebanese border fell to the combined forces of the Syrian regime and Iran’s Lebanese Hezbollah.

This week, Russia blocked the draft text of a UN Security Council declaration of grave concern about the civilians trapped in the besieged city of Homs.

This probably means Moscow expects regime and Hezbollah forces to imminently route opposition rebels from Syria’s third largest city, which they have been pummeling for nearly 10 days.

Regime and Hezbollah forces control parts of Homs, while several neighborhoods in the center are opposition strongholds.

Council statements must be agreed unanimously.

Australia and Luxembourg circulated in the council last Wednesday this draft statement on Homs, which Moscow obstructed the next day:

The members of the Security Council express their grave concern about the estimated 2,500 civilians trapped in Homs as a result of the recent heavy fighting.

The members of the Security Council call upon the Syrian Government to facilitate immediate, safe and unhindered access, in accordance with the United Nations guiding principles of humanitarian assistance, for relevant humanitarian, including UN, actors, to reach civilians in Homs, in urgent need of assistance, in particular, medical assistance.

The members of the Security Council call upon all parties in Syria to do their utmost to protect civilians, including allowing them to leave Homs and avoid civilian casualties, recalling the primary responsibility of the Syrian Government in this regard.  They emphasize that those responsible for violations of applicable international law will be held accountable.

Russia’s UN Mission said it proposed an alternative statement, which called for immediate access to Homs as well as the predominantly Shiite government-controlled towns of Nubul and Zahra that opposition fighters are seeking to take.

An eye-opener on the regime’s renewed offensive in Homs is a news analysis by the Institute for the Study of War authored by Elizabeth O’Bagy, which you can read in full here.

It states in part:

Although the opposition is thoroughly entrenched in parts of Homs city, much of the countryside has been cleared of rebel presence and the frequency of government checkpoints has grown…

Activists in Homs city said all cellular lines were cut early on June 29 before airplanes pounded rebel-held districts in the city. Before government troops could advance, intense shelling with artillery, mortars, and tanks followed the two-day-long air campaign.

Throughout the week, rebel forces have engaged in intense clashes with government troops in Khalidiya, Hamidiya and the Old City. Government forces are attempting to push into rebel-held districts from all sides, and are choking rebel supply lines into the city…

"This is the worst campaign against the city since the revolution began," said an activist in the rebel-held old quarter of the city. Rebel commanders reinforced this message, adding that the regime has significantly accelerated its operations in Homs province in the past week, and has brought substantial forces to bear, aided by both air superiority and Iranian, Hezbollah, and Iraqi irregular forces.

Although rebel fighters are sufficiently entrenched in Homs to ensure a prolonged fight for the city, the opposition currently lacks the requisite arms and supplies to hold off the offensive for an extended period of time.

The delaying action in Homs is strategically significant because it gains the opposition time in Aleppo, but if the regime is able to consolidate its hold in Homs city and the countryside, it may be able to secure its lines of communication in ways that make its ultimate offensive in Aleppo more effective.

The factor that will most limit the regime’s ability to redeploy assets from Homs to Aleppo will be holding cleared terrain, which can be time consuming and troop intensive.

In addition to ongoing operations, the Syrian government has also been attempting to shore up its military success in Homs province by repopulating the towns and villages that come under regime control with Alawites.

In al-Qusayr, citizens from the 23 neighboring Alawi villages have been encouraged to relocate in al-Qusayr into the homes of those who fled during the fighting. This has also been seen in other predominantly Sunni towns…

By resettling Alawites into formerly Sunni villages and towns, the Syrian government is attempting to create new demographic realities that help ensure that the countryside does not fall again into rebel hands. Moreover, surrounding key cities with supportive communities allows the Syrian government to use these villages as a base for staging operations against remaining rebel strongholds and helps create conditions more conducive to regime victory in Homs city itself…

Overall, the Syrian government’s campaign in Homs sheds light on two important markers of overall regime capability: its difficulty with launching sequential campaigns without an operational pause, as well as the challenges it faces from launching multiple, simultaneous offensives in Aleppo, Homs, and Damascus in ways that protract each fight… 

With the battle for Homs raging on, the Syrian National Coalition yesterday elected Ahmad Jarba, 44, as its new president after a close runoff vote held in Istanbul.

Jarba, who represents the faction of veteran secular dissident Michel Kilo and has Saudi connections, obtained 55 votes – three more than defeated businessman Mustafa Sabbagh, Qatar’s pointman in the opposition.

The 114 members of the coalition also elected three vice presidents -- Suhair Atassi, Farouk Tayfur and Salem Muslit.

Badr Jamous was voted secretary general of the umbrella organization officially recognized by the Arab League and dozens of states and organizations as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

Assad forces focus on Homs, rebels on Deraa

Khalid ibn al-Walid Mosque (top) under shelling

Khalid ibn al-Walid mausoleum (top) and before and after snaps of the mosque courtyard

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces were today using their lethal monopoly on the skies to launch recurring airstrikes against rebel-held districts in the central city of Homs.

The Syrian Opposition Coalition warned this afternoon the regime might resort to chemical weapons, having failed so far to make “any significant progress on the ground” in the battle for Homs, center of the 27-month-old uprising.

Activists said jets and mortars pounded rebel-held areas of the city that have been under siege by Assad's troops for a year, and soldiers fought battles with rebels in several districts.

An activist in Homs told The Associated Press the assault was "the worst campaign against the city since the revolution began" in mid-March 2011.

"Government forces are trying to storm (Homs) from all fronts," another activist told Reuters.

Video footage uploaded by activists on YouTube showed heavy explosions and white clouds of smoke rising from rebel districts.

One clip showed thick black smoke rising from the 13th-century Khalid ibn al-Walid Mosque, on the edge of the Khalidiya neighborhood.

The mosque is dedicated to Khalid ibn al-Walid, a companion of Prophet Muhammad and a military commander who led the Muslim conquest of Syria in the 7th century following the decisive Battle of Yarmouk, which put an end to Byzantine rule in Syria. His dome-topped mausoleum is located in a corner of the prayer hall.

The regime’s attack on Homs follows military advances by Assad forces, backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, in villages in Homs province and towns close to the Lebanese border.

Three weeks ago Hezbollah spearheaded Assad's recapture of the town of Qusayr on the Lebanese-Syrian border.

Last Wednesday the rebels lost Tal Kalakh, a town located within walking distance of the Lebanon border.

Elsewhere in Syria rebels made major advances in the southwestern city of Deraa, just north of the border with Jordan.

They overran a major military checkpoint in Deraa on Friday and hoped it would allow them to capture the city, cradle of their 27-month-old uprising and an arms pipeline for rebels stretching all the way to Damascus.

According to military strategy expert Safwat al-Zayyat, a former major general in the Egyptian armed forces, “the battle for Homs is the regime’s follow-on to the Qusayr battle.”

Zayyat told Aljazeera TV in an interview last night:

The regime’s focus now is to try and regain full control of Homs.

The rebels, on the other hand, have the initiative in Aleppo and in the battles for Idlib and for Deraa.

Assad forces know the airbases they use for resupply from Iran and Russia are liable to be bombarded at anytime.

They thus want to secure an alternative bridgehead for resupply from their allies in Lebanon.

The regime wants to consolidate its control over a corridor of territory into Lebanon that runs from Damascus through Homs to Qusayr and Tal Kalakh.

Lebanon is set to become the regime’s next and sole resupply artery.

By concentrating their firepower on Jurat al-Shiah, Khalidiya, Bab al-Sebaa, Bab Houd and Bab al-Drayb in Homs, Assad forces are unlikely to want to overrun these neighborhoods. They don’t have the foot soldiers to do that. They would want to decimate and cleanse the neighborhoods instead.

As regards the rebels, they are on the verge of a decisive victory in Deraa shortly. Now that they have overrun military checkpoints Nos. 35, 36 and 37, the only neighborhood standing in their way into Deraa city center is al-Manshieh.

By capturing Deraa, opposition forces would be able to rush reinforcements to rebels fighting in Eastern Ghouta and the southern districts of Damascus.

In brief, the rebels now control most of Syria’s north and a sizable part of its south, and the regime is in the saddle in the provinces of Homs and Damascus.  

Obama must act decisively on Syria – McCain

On the heels of his trip to Syria and stops in Jordan, Turkey and Yemen, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) yesterday delivered this address at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. on “U.S. policy in Syria and the broader Middle East”:

Senator John McCain at Brookings yesterday

Thank you, Martin (Indyk), for that kind introduction.  

It is always a pleasure to return to the Brookings Institution, this bastion of conservative thought. It is nice to see so many friends, as well as a few enemies, in the audience this afternoon. I would like to make a few opening remarks, and then I’d be happy to respond to any comments, or questions, or insults you may have.

As most of you know, I traveled last week to Yemen, Jordan, Turkey, and Syria. This was my twelfth separate trip to the region since the events known as the Arab Spring began in December 2011. And what I can say categorically today is that I am now more concerned than at any time since the darkest days of the war in Iraq that the Middle East is descending into sectarian conflict.  

The conflict in Syria is at the heart of this crisis. Last week, together with General Salim Idriss, the chief of staff of the Supreme Military Council, I met with more than a dozen senior Free Syrian Army commanders in southern Turkey and northern Syria. They came from cities across Syria, including Qusayr, Homs, Damascus, and Aleppo. Many of them were joined by their civilian counterparts. And all of them painted the same grave picture of the state of the conflict in Syria.

Assad has turned the tide of battle on the ground. His foreign allies have all doubled down on him. Iran is all in. Russia is all in. Shiite militants are flowing into the fight from Iraq. And Hezbollah fighters have invaded Syria by the thousands. They were decisive in retaking the critical city of Qusayr, and now they are leading the attacks on Homs and Aleppo. Assad is using every weapon in his arsenal, from tanks and artillery, to air power and ballistic missiles. And according to a recent U.N. report, there are, quote, “reasonable grounds” to believe that Assad’s forces have used chemical weapons. The President’s red-line appears to have been crossed, perhaps more than once, and it should come as no surprise that new claims of chemical weapons use by Assad are already surfacing, as I heard in Syria.

The result of this onslaught is that Syria as we know it is ceasing to exist. More than 80,000 people are dead. A quarter of all Syrians have been driven from their homes. The Syrian state is disintegrating in much of the country, leaving vast ungoverned spaces that are being filled by extremists, many aligned with al-Qaeda. Some now put the number of these extremists inside Syria in the thousands. They are the best armed, best funded, and most experienced fighters. And every day this conflict grinds on, these extremists are marginalizing moderate leaders like the commanders I met last week – Syrians who don’t want to trade Assad for al-Nusra.

The worsening conflict in Syria is now spilling outside of the country and stoking sectarian conflict across the region. Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey are each straining under the weight of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. Indeed, ten percent of Jordan’s population is now Syrian refugees. This would be equivalent to the entire population of Texas suddenly crossing our own border. And that number is expected to double this year. Terrorist bombings have struck Turkey, and Syrian groups are firing rockets into Shiite areas of Lebanon in retaliation for Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria. Old sectarian wounds are being reopened in Lebanon.

The situation is even worse in Iraq. The conflict in Syria, together with Prime Minister Maliki’s unwillingness to share power, is radicalizing Iraq’s Sunni population. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is back and stepping up its attacks on Iraqi Shiites. In response, Shiite militias are remobilizing and retaliating against Iraqi Sunnis. More than 1,000 Iraqis were killed last month alone, the highest level of violence since 2007. Some experts now believe that one watershed event, similar to the bombing of the Golden Mosque in 2006, could tip Iraq back into full-scale sectarian conflict.

Extremist forces are also gathering momentum elsewhere in the region. The fall of governments across the region has opened up ungoverned spaces that now stretch from the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, across North Africa, all the way down into Mali and even northern Nigeria. Al-Qaeda affiliated extremist groups are now on the march throughout these vast ungoverned spaces. Iran is also seeking to exploit the present chaos. Indeed, every Yemeni and U.S. official I met last week in Sana’a said that Iran is a greater threat in Yemen today than Al-Qaeda.

Put simply, the space for moderate politics is collapsing as the Middle East descends deeper into extremism and conflict. A sectarian battle-line is being drawn through the heart of the region – with Sunni extremists, many allied with al-Qaeda, dominant on one side, and Iranian-backed proxy forces dominant on the other.  

What is more disturbing, however, is how little most Americans seem to care. Most are weary of war and eager to focus on domestic issues. But some hold a more cynical view: They see the Middle East as a hopeless quagmire of ancient hatreds and a huge distraction from worthier priorities, whether it is rebalancing toward Asia or nation-building at home. For those of us who believe otherwise, and who believe the United States must lead more actively in the region, we have to answer a fundamental question: Why should we care about the Middle East?

One reason is that we have enduring national interests in the Middle East that will not be diminished – not by our fatigue with the region and its challenges, not by our desire to focus on domestic issues, not by the growing importance of other parts of the world, and not even by the prospect of American energy independence. The Middle East has always been more important than oil. It still is.  

The United States has friends and allies in the Middle East who depend on us for their security, and who contribute more to the defense and well-being of our nation than most Americans will ever know. But believe me, Americans will know it very quickly if global trade and energy flows, not to mention U.S. warships, can no longer transit the Suez Canal, through which approximately 8 percent of the world’s seaborne trade passes. They will know it if we lose key Arab partners, such as the Kingdom of Jordan, along with their vital military, intelligence, and counterterrorism cooperation. And they will absolutely know it if Israel becomes beset on all sides by even more hostile governments and more violent extremists.

In short, if the Middle East descends into extremism, and war, and despair, no one should think America would be able to pivot away from those threats. Our national security interests will suffer. That is an inescapable reality. It is the lesson of September 11, 2001. And to believe otherwise is not only naïve; it is dangerous.  

The Middle East also matters because much of the rest of the world views it, rightly, as a test of American credibility and resolve. For decades, Presidents of both parties have said the United States will deter our enemies and support our friends in the Middle East. They have said we would not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapons capability. And they have said, as this President has said about Syria, that we would not tolerate the use or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. If the United States now signals that it is unwilling or unable to meet its own stated commitments and enforce its own declared red-lines, that message will be heard loud and clear, far beyond the Middle East. It will demoralize our friends, embolden our enemies, and make our world a far more dangerous place for us.

But ultimately, there is a more positive reason why we have to care about the Middle East. This region is now experiencing a period of upheaval unlike any time since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Over the past three years, we have seen millions and millions of ordinary men and women rise up peacefully, and lift their voices, and risk everything on behalf of the same values we hold dear: freedom and democracy, equal justice and rule of law, human rights and dignity. They are doing so against impossible odds and, at times, in the face of merciless oppression and violence. These brave men and women are taking a chance on themselves, many for the first time. And they are asking us to take a chance on them – not after they have succeeded in their struggles, but now, when they need it most, when their fate hangs in the balance, and when American leadership can still be decisive.

I know some of our initial hopes for the Arab Spring have dimmed quite a bit – in part because of a lack of U.S. leadership.  But these hopes have not gone out. And so long as men and women across the Middle East still harbor hopes for a future of peace, and freedom, and prosperity, the Arab Spring will remain the greatest repudiation of everything that al-Qaeda stands for. Ultimately, this is how our long fight against global terrorist groups will be won. This is how conditions of lasting peace will finally be secured across the Middle East. Not through drone strikes and night raids alone, but by helping people across the region lift up democratic governments and growing economies that offer hope.

The entire Middle East is now up for grabs, and our enemies are fully committed to winning. Moderate forces and aspiring democrats are fighting for their futures and their very lives. The only power that is not fully committed in this struggle is us. And as a result, leaders and people across the region who share our interests and many of our values are losing ground to violent extremists.  

Our friends and allies in the Middle East are crying out for American leadership, as I heard again last week. We must answer this call. We must lead. We need an alternative strategy that creates space for moderate leaders to marginalize extremists and for people to resolve their differences peacefully, politically.  

An alternative strategy must begin with a credible Syria policy. I want a negotiated end to this conflict. But anyone who thinks that Assad and his allies will ever make peace when they are winning on the battlefield is delusional. I know that the situation in Syria is hugely complicated, and that there are no easy or ideal options. But we have to be realistic: This conflict will grind on with all of its worsening consequences until the balance of power shifts against Assad and his allies. And the longer we wait to take action, the more action we will have to take.

No one should think that we have to destroy every air defense system or put thousands of boots on the ground to make a difference in Syria. We have limited options. We could use our stand-off weapons, such as cruise missiles, to target Assad’s aircraft and ballistic missile launchers on the ground. We could enable a provisional government to establish itself in a safe zone in Syria that we could help to protect with Patriot missiles. And we could organize a full-scale operation to train and equip Syrian opposition forces. After all, Assad is getting weapons. Al-Nusra is getting weapons. The only forces in Syria that are not getting weapons are moderate commanders like those I met last week, who said their units desperately need ammunition and weapons to counter Assad’s tanks, artillery, and air power.

Would any of this immediately end the conflict? Probably not. But could it save innocent lives in Syria? Could it give the moderate opposition a better chance to succeed? And could it help to turn the conflict in Syria into a strategic disaster for Iran and Hezbollah? To me, the answer to all of these questions is yes.  

More decisive action in Syria could create new leverage to defuse sectarian tensions and counter Iran’s ambition of regional hegemony. In the Gulf, this would mean making the military threat more credible and apparent as Iran continues its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability. And in Lebanon, this would mean making the strategic defeat of Hezbollah in Syria the centerpiece of a wider campaign to target its finances, cut its supply lines, delegitimize its leaders, and support internal opposition to its role as an armed force in Lebanese politics.  

An alternative Middle East strategy must also include a greatly enhanced effort to build the capacity of security forces across the region, especially in North African. Egypt needs a new police force. Tunisia needs help with border security. Libya is trying to build new national security forces from scratch. Mali basically needs a whole new army. One bright spot is actually Yemen, which is engaged in a promising restructuring of its armed forces and internal security units. These governments, and others like them, don’t want al-Qaeda affiliates exploiting their countries any more than we do. They have a lot of will to resist these groups. They just need help with the means. The U.S. military can play this role better than any force in the world. And it is in our interest to do so far more than we are currently.

More broadly, we must renew our leadership on behalf of human rights and democracy in the Middle East. This will take different forms in different countries. In Yemen, for example, where a managed transition is proving more successful thus far than many could have expected, we must continue to provide assistance as requested. In Jordan, Morocco, and the Gulf states, we must shore up the stability of these vital partners while also urging them to continue responding to their peoples’ desires for change, including through greater political reform.  

And then there is Egypt, where the high hopes that many of us, and many Egyptians, had back in January 2011 are being deeply disappointed. I am a friend of Egypt and a long-standing supporter of our assistance relationship. But after this week’s conviction of 43 NGO workers, Congress must reevaluate our assistance to Egypt. Our foreign aid budget is shrinking while the demands on it are growing. As a result, Egypt must show that it is a good investment of our scarce resources – that the return on this investment will be a freer, more democratic, more tolerant Egypt. If not, Congress will spend this money elsewhere. That is just a fact.

At the same time, we must make it clear that the United States does not align itself with any one ruler or group in Egypt. Rather, we stand for the principles and practices of democracy, for the freedoms of civil society, and for the basic rights of all Egyptians. We must not simply exchange a Mubarak policy for a Morsi policy. We need to have, at long last, an Egypt policy.  

Finally, any strategy to bolster moderates in the Middle East must include an effort to seek peace between Palestinians and Israelis. As always, such an effort must be weighed against its opportunity costs. With so many urgent priorities now demanding high-level attention in the region, especially Syria, I hope the President and his new national security team are carefully considering these trade-offs.

Each of the steps I have described today is necessary if we are to have a more effective strategy to advance our interests and values in the Middle East. But none of these steps will be sufficient without one additional factor: the sustained, outspoken, and determined leadership of the President of the United States.

Only the President can explain to the American people how high the stakes are in the Middle East. Only the President can change public opinion and rally the American people behind him. Only the President can push our government to be bolder, and more imaginative, and more decisive than it is inclined to be. Only the President can pull our friends and allies together and shape their individual efforts into decisive, unified international action. Only the President can do these things. And that is what we need from him now more than ever. We need him to lead.

That is also what our friends and allies in the Middle East want from our President. They want him to lead, and they want America to lead. That is what I heard last week in Jordan. That is what I heard in Yemen. That is what I heard in Turkey. And that is absolutely what I heard in Syria. That is what people and leaders tell me again and again as I travel throughout the region. They tell me they want America to lead because they are confident that America can still be decisive in shaping the future of the Middle East. In short, our friends and allies still believe in America. What they want to know is whether we still believe in ourselves.

Renewing American leadership in the Middle East should be a Republican goal. It should be a Democratic goal. And if the President makes it his goal, he will have my full support.