Major powers redefine their position on Syria, confirming the phased demise of Bashar al-Assad’s government as expected.

LAST Tuesday, the US and Europe officially recognised the rebel Syrian National Coalition (SNC) as “the sole and legitimate representative of the Syrian people”.

Russia, a long-standing ally of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, came closer than before to doing so the following day. Its Deputy Foreign Minister and envoy to the region, Mikhail Bogdanov, declared for the first time that Assad may well fall and that Moscow needed to plan for an evacuation of its citizens there.

As the world enters a new year next month, Syria will be entering the eighth quarter of its civil war. For months now, rebel forces have been gaining strength at the expense of Assad’s rule, gaining territory particularly in the northern regions.

For many disinterested observers, Assad’s fall is as much to be expected as his decline for well over a year has been evident. But for Damascus and its allies, avoiding the issue of its final hour or outright denial of that prospect has been the norm.

Bogdanov’s frank mid-week assessment was significant as it formed part of formal testimony at Moscow hearings of a Kremlin advisory body. It was not a flippant, impressionistic or off-the-cuff comment made on the spur of the moment.

This acknowledgment of Assad’s predicament fell short of switching Russia’s allegiance to the rebels, which would have to come from President Vladimir Putin or at least Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Russia instead spurned the US and European move, saying that it violated the Geneva Declaration of last June to facilitate a Syrian national dialogue.

Britain, France, the Gulf Cooperation Council and Turkey had already expressed formal recognition of Assad’s adversaries. The US delayed its official recognition as it was, and remains, uncertain about the influence of Islamist militants among the rebels.

Thus it was a moment of no small significance when Washington switched formal recognition. But for two important reasons, Bogdanov’s statement is more important than even the US or European recognition of the SNC.

First, it was unexpected of an Assad ally to see, and declare on record, the writing on the wall about his demise. This candour, despite its negative repercussions on Damascus, was immediately welcomed by the US and the SNC.

Second, Russia has been supplying arms to Syria for two generations and over four decades. It has intimate knowledge of Assad’s military strengths and weaknesses, so that a negative assessment would be particularly telling.

That made Bogdanov’s evaluation immediately welcomed by the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), the SNC’s de facto military wing. Then the ramifications of Bogdanov’s statement suddenly caught up with Moscow, which promptly played down its significance.

But the damage to Assad’s morale had been done. The secret of his ultimate military strength, or weakness, was out.

For the major powers, Syria is important not just for itself but also for its regional significance. This includes the influence it wields in the neighbourhood as well as its working relations, whether present or prospective, with such other countries as Iran.

For Russia, there are few things worse than being left out or cut off from a country like Syria. And one of these few things is to be left out or cut off and surpassed in Syrian relations by the West.

The US is even less hopeful now than before about a Western-friendly post-Assad regime, given the increasingly militant-like posture of Assad’s foes. Yet his demise has lately become so compelling as to require some form of tough realism about recognising what is to come.

For the West, it may be better to engage with a militant-like regime in post-Assad Damascus than not to be engaged at all – and the earlier the engagement starts, the better. So the week’s formal recognition was essentially a lesser-of-two-evils option, but one that has also prompted some unexpected movement in Russia.

However, the doubts remain and the concerns have in fact grown. The FSA has increasingly become staffed, and lately dominated, by Islamist militants sympathetic to terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda.

Ironically, both Washington and Damascus agree that one of these groups, Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front), is an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq. The US recently classified it as a banned terrorist group.

Another militant group, Oussoud al-Sunna, may face a similar fate. But Washington should also realise the limits of its actions on them.

The ban on al-Nusra was supposed to encourage mainstream factions of the FSA to distance themselves from the militant elements. But not only has this strategy failed, the move has begun to backfire.

Moderate FSA activists have reportedly come out in support of al-Nusra in the face of third-party criticism. They seem more taken by their common enemy Assad, and having to be rid of him as top priority, than by any differences among themselves.

Thus, recognition of the SNC and indirectly of its military arm the FSA could prove to be “blowback” in future, returning to haunt US strategists. But that would not be the first time such a thing happened, nor the last.

Reports from the Syrian ground indicate the West’s terrible timing. Recognition was withheld earlier because of uncertainty about the rebels’ militant roots, so other sources armed the rebellion to the militants’ advantage.

Now that the rebels are seen to grow in strength, the West has had to scramble to “invest” in Syria’s future through recognition. In time, that could mean lending political support for a militant movement ensconced in a post-Assad Syria.

Meanwhile, it is easy to be distracted by some of the more peripheral details about Syria. For example, the US is concerned about Syria possibly using or “moving” (passing to militants) its suspected chemical weapons supplies.

Damascus has not acknowledged possessing such weapons, saying only that “if it had them”, it would not use them against rebel fighters. But Western governments that recently recognised the SNC seem to have forgotten about the possibility of militants inheriting such weapons after Assad’s fall.

The FSA and the SNC also complain about their lack of heavy artillery to neutralise Assad’s forces. They have so far taken only half of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, and have yet to make a dent on the capital Damascus.

The West’s recognition of the SNC could pave the way for heavy weapons supplies, such as anti-aircraft batteries and anti-armour shells. But that would only raise the risk of supplying such serious weapons to militant groups or those linked to them.

The US has not said how it would respond if Assad proceeded to use or move his chemical weapons. This leaves several options open to Washington, without being tied down to any obligated action.

In the immediate future, the US is likely to follow up formal recognition of the Syrian opposition with air cover against Assad’s forces, or at least clandestine strikes by special forces teams at suspected chemical weapons sites to “secure” them.

The US is still reluctant to commit troops to Syria, but the lack of clarity between “moderates” and “militants” there is even more challenging than in Iraq or Afghanistan. And as the rhetoric of “protecting the people” continues by the major powers, their main interest remains securing a piece of their own future in the region.

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