The other thing to note of course is that in terms of fighting you've got at least six easily identifiable factions
Syrian Government, Free Syrian Arny, ISIL, Al Nusra, Hezbollah and Kurdish Seperatists
One thing that's becoming more and more apparent to me since turning to other media organisations for my information, is the bewildering number of local, regional and national splinter groups that exist; groups which the western media never even name check. These groups are reported under a collective label of 'rebels', invariably with an implied 'good guys' hint. So far as I can work out however most of them represent different shades of Islamism. In fact it's almost as if everyone is fighting everyone else. The broad doctrine is attack the person nearest to you (its the old 99 call). As well as the Kurds, you've also got a series of nationalist groups too, who are bringing another dimension to the table, the Aleppans probably being the largest.
Actually I'll give you an example. On October 7th the ever biased BBC were complaining about the Russians attacking non ISIL rebels, (even calling them western backed rebels). If you chase this story down however you discover that the rebel group that came under attack were called Jaish al Fateh, a loose alliance of jihadi groups who's primary affiliation is to al-Nusra, themselves an AQ affiliate. This action resulted in about 50 kms of territory regained. The more you read from the region rather than the BBC, the more you come across this kind of thing
Now the reason for labouring this Marb isn't to point out how our own state propagandist is putting us away, but rather to ask you to imagine just what a ballot sheet is going to look like? There is no mature political philosophy driving the pretenders. The overwhelming affiliation is tribal, religious, or geographic. You could have dozens of candidates all taking out a few percent of the vote each. It could be a real mess, and this is where I disagree with Hilary Benn's take. I don't think it's by any means certain Assad will lose, and even if he does, he's still going to be a significant player in terms of popularity and quite capable of forming a coalition. Ignoring the will of the people in this regard would be a mistake and risk repeating the errors made in post Saddam Iraq
