There is a change in the global political position towards Syria. Here are three recent indicators. Via FLC we learn of a significant position change in Tunisia:
Tunisia wants to reopen its embassy in Syria which has been closed for more than two years and has sent a request in this vein to the government in Damascus. Tunis is yet to receive a reply from Syria’s foreign ministry and a diplomatic source said that the letter has been sent to the foreign ministry since “last week.”
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Tunisia quickly closed its embassy when the uprising against the Assad regime began in 2011. It will become the first country to reopen its diplomatic office in Syria if its request receives a positive response from the foreign ministry.
Tunisia is especially significant as it is part of the Arab League and its government is led by the Ennahda party which is ideological affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Tunisia is threatened by the Ansar al-Sharia Salafist movement, some of who's supporters are fighting on the Syrian insurgency side, and the Ennahda government recently moved against that group.
Another sign that the international wind is changing was last weeks United Nation General Assembly vote on a nonbinding Qatari resolution against Syria. The resolution itself had to be rewritten some six times and while it gained the vote of 107 states a similar resolution last year was favored by 130 states.
A third sign is the seemingly changing position in Israel where a political mood is turning towards keeping the Syrian president Bashar Assad in power:
“Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if Syria falls into chaos and the extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there,” one senior Israeli intelligence officer was quoted as saying.
A weakened, but intact Assad regime would be preferable for Syria and the Middle East, the Times reported intelligence sources as saying.
That view will likely later be reflected in Washington where the "Assad must go" crowd has yet to weaken its position.
While the above three indicators point to a change in position the Israeli change adds what can be understood as a new demand:
The situation that Assad survives, maintaining power in Damascus and in the corridors to the large coastal cities, would entail the breaking up of Syria into three separate states.
The Zionist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy have propagandized for such a breakup for quite some time:
[T]hree Syrias are emerging: one loyal to the government, to Iran and to Hezbollah; one dominated by Kurds with links to Kurdish separatists in Turkey and Iraq; and one with a Sunni majority that is heavily influenced by Islamists and jihadis.
“It is not that Syria is melting down — it has melted down,” said Andrew J. Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of “In the Lion’s Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington’s Battle with Syria.”
“So much has changed between the different parties that I can’t imagine it all going back into one piece,” Mr. Tabler said.
I do not believe that a split of Syria is going to happen. The Kurds in Syria may gain some additional cultural autonomy but they will not join any other state or create one of their own. The Jihadist insurgency will be beaten and most Sunnis in Syria, as well as the minority Alawite and Christians, will not want their state to split but want to rebuild it.
Israel does not have the power to break Syria into weak statelets and other states have no interest to do so. It would only invite more trouble.
In this recent interview Bashar Assad presents himself again as a self secure statesman. There is no way that man would let Syria get chopped up though he is still expecting some additional outright intervention:
"[Intervention] is a clear probability, especially after we've managed to beat back armed groups in many areas of Syria. Then these countries sent Israel to do this to raise the morale of the terrorist groups. We expect that an intervention will occur at some point although it may be limited in nature."
Any further intervention will only come after the Geneva conference fails as it will because the disunited Syrian opposition will not be able to guarantee that its side will adhere to any negotiated clause.
But that failure is still many weeks away and meanwhile the trend towards more international support of Syria and against the insurgency will gain speed. Without broad international support a U.S. or Israeli intervention is likely to fail.
