It is by Fisk and the guy is not always as sober as one would like but his story rings true:
Six weeks ago, a two-man delegation arrived in secret in Damascus: civilians from Aleppo who represented elements of the Free Syrian Army, the rebel group largely composed of fighters who deserted the regime’s army in the first year of the war. They came under a guarantee of safety, and met, so I am told, a senior official on the staff of President Bashar al-Assad. And they carried with them an extraordinary initiative – that there might be talks between the government and FSA officers who “believed in a Syrian solution” to the war.
It makes sense for nationalist minded insurgents to stop the fight against the government as other parts of the armed opposition are now aligning themselves with Al-Qaeda and thereby against any nationalist form of Syria.
Last week some 10 to 14 groups in northern Syria, including the hardline Jabhat al-Nusra, united under an Islamic flag. Yesterday 43 groups south of Damascus united as a new Army of Islam under the command of the head of the Liwa al-Islam brigade. While the numbers seem impressive at least some of these "new" associations are fake and one has to keep in mind that there are some 1,200+ insurgency groups in Syria, most of those just local gangs or thieves. Many of those will not be happy with the ascent of a rigid Islamic system and will prefer an amnesty or some other arrangement with the Syrian government.
We may thereby now see a new configuration of the parties in the Syrian conflict. Insurgent groups with Islamic tendencies will unite under ever more radical banners and will depend on "private" money from the Gulf states. The more secular groups, who will no longer receive money or weapons from the defunct FSA command and the useless exile Syrian National Council, will now turn to the government to gain amnesty or some other understanding. They may well join the Syrian Arab Army in the fight against the radical groups. The Kurds have defended their areas against Jihadis as well as the Syrian government but the leftist PYD group leading them does not have good relation with the Barzani clan that leads in the Iraqi Kurd territories. The Syrian Kurds will therefore stay in the national Syrian realm but will demand some local and language autonomy which will be granted.
The precautious U.S. government move to detente with Iran, widely supported by the U.S. population, will put pressure on the Gulf regimes. They are financially bound to the "west" and can not stand against the U.S. will. When Obama will finally throw away the regime change platitudes and decide to shut down the supply lines to the Jihadis in Syria, the Gulf states, as well as Turkey, will have to comply. Iran and Russia put out some feelers that might make it it easier, especially for the Saudis, to dismount from the sectarian horse they have been riding in the wake of Shia ascendency. The only stumbling block for these new arrangements are the hardliners in Israel. But Netanyahoo's star is already sinking with other hawks arguing against his stand and any resistance to these developments will only accelerate its demise.
It will take time for the Syrian government to eliminate the terrorists from Syrian territory. But the now emerging new constellations of the war are much clearer and much more to the advantage of the government then they have been in the previous two years.