Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syrian President Bashar Assad, and the leaders of Iran and Hezbollah have been having a very good month. Their efforts to crush Syrian rebels and their supporters are going well, and the Syrian military and Iranian Revolutionary Guard militias sent to assist it have been able to breach opposition lines, and take back a series of strategic areas in the north and south. Putin's success, however, comes at the Syrian people's expense. Hundreds of thousands have died, some 8 million people -- one-third of the Syrian population -- have been displaced, and the joint Syrian-Russian-Iranian campaign may soon increase the number of refugees by 2 million. Only a few months ago, the rebels were on the outskirts of Damascus, but Russia and Iran's overt involvement in Syria, which began in September, has stopped them in their tracks. This involvement has enabled Assad to bolster his grip on a part of Syria stretching north of Damascus, to Aleppo and the regime's coastal Alawite stronghold, and to Daraa in the south. Moscow and Tehran have now set their sights on their next target -- eradicating the rebel groups in Syria's west, so to prevent them from threatening Assad's regime again. Here lies the importance of Aleppo, the second-largest city in Syria, adjacent to the Turkish border. Over the past few years, the rebels and the regime have been fighting for control of Aleppo, essentially splitting it in half. Assad's forces have now been able to surround the city, now in ruins, cutting the rebels off from their Turkish allies. Turning south, the Syrian army is now setting its sights on Daraa, as well as on regaining control of the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, which was overrun by the rebels in 2014. Uninterrupted, the Syrian forces' momentum may soon see Assad regain control of the country's west, allowing it to focus on its east, where the Islamic State group has taken over vast areas of Syria. Driving Islamic State out of the area it seized about a year ago is an optimistic scenario for Assad and his allies, and realizing it is a long way away. Nevertheless, given the fact that Assad, whose regime's days were believed to be numbered not so long ago, is still going strong thanks to Russia and Iran nothing can be discounted. Putin's success is U.S. President Barack Obama's resounding failure. Washington's incompetence in dealing with the situation in Syria, and the Middle East for that matter, has allowed Moscow to call the shots on the ground, and reshape Syrian reality: Gone is the nation where an Alawite minority ruled a rebellious Sunni majority; enter new Syria, where almost half of the population have become refugees, and the remainder have been left so traumatized, they are willing to accept the new demographic balance, where Alawites and other minorities now make up half of the Syrian population. The civil war in Syria has known its twists and turns, as well as its fair share of debunked predictions. Meanwhile, regardless of the destruction in Syria, or perhaps because of is, the only one to emerge triumphant from battle so far is Putin.
