'..Even after Hafez's death, any attempt at conciliation was blocked..'<blockquote>'..the overwhelming majority of Syrians are not fleeing from IS, but from Assad's barrel bombs, the Syrian Air Force and the generally hopeless situation.
IS primarily controls sparsely populated desert areas in eastern Syria. According to reports by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, Assad's soldiers killed about 11,500 people between January and August, while IS killed 1,800. Among civilians, at least 10 times as many people die as a result of the regime's attacks than at the hands of IS.
IS has made adjustments to cope with the air strikes. Its troops now tend to operate in towns, in which they prevent the residents from fleeing by erecting checkpoints and imposing draconian punishments. This prevents Western forces from effectively attacking IS.
..
A negotiated solution still seems a long way off, at least as long as Assad remains in power. Negotiations can only succeed if both parties stand to benefit. But from the very beginning, Assad and his top leaders chose a path that permits only victory or defeat. And Russia supports them on this path.
..his ongoing rule is the original reason for the conflict..
The only way Syria can survive as a nation is if the two large camps, consisting of the moderate rebels and the Syrian army, band together against IS to preserve the country. This could easily work without Assad, but not with him.
..
Since the days of his father, dynasty founder Hafez Assad, fear was always a major component in Syria's principle of rule. It not only includes subjects' fear of those in power, but also their own followers' fear of everyone else. The Alawite religious community, to which the Assads belong, makes up one-tenth of the Syrian population. The most effective way to preserve the Alawites' unconditional loyalty was not preferential treatment but fear of the Sunni majority. And this fear was systematically stoked with such campaigns as the bloody suppression of a rebellion by the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama in 1982. Even after Hafez's death, any attempt at conciliation was blocked..'
- Spiegel,
Abandoning Syria: Few Options Left for Stopping the War, September 18, 2015</blockquote>
Context<blockquote>
(Syria) - '..a regime that actually fuels .. violent Islamic militancy..''..Rohani has warned that water shortages .. threatening [Iran].'The Garden of Forgiveness</blockquote>